
ONGOLD DIGGINGS 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDD13t.mH3 



Library of Congress. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Chap T^'V ^ I 

Shelf- -j^- /_^>*r-— - 




" We of the Flannel Shirt and the Unblacked Boot." 

Frontispiece. 



Through 
the 

Yukon Gold Diggings 

A Narrative of Personal Travel 



JOSIAH EDWARD SPURR 

Geologist, United States Geological Survey 



^^=^^ 



r.OSTON 

EASTERN PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1900 



G2G36 

OCT 18 1900 
Coy^ngh* mtry 

SiTJ^sir COPY. 
0«0t« b'VlSION, 



Copyright, 1900 

by 

JOSIAH EDWARD SPURR 



r\ 









fK 



Preface. 

A S a geologist of the United States Geological 
^"^ Survey, I had the good fortune to be 
placed in charge of the first expedition sent by 
that department into the interior of Alaska. 
The gold diggings of the Yukon region were not 
then known to the world in general, yet to those 
interested in mining their renown had come in a 
vague way, and the special problem w4th which 
I was charged was their investigation. The re- 
sults of my studies were embodied in a report 
entitled : " Geology of the Yukon Gold Dis- 
trict," published by the Government. 

It was during my travels through the mining 
regions that the Klondike discovery, which sub- 
sequently turned so many heads throughout all 
of the civilized nations, was made. General con- 
ditions of mining, travelling and prospecting are 
much the same to-day as they were at that time, 
except in the limited districts into which the 
flood of miners has poured. My travels in Alaska 
have been extensive since the journey of which 
this work is a record, and I have noted the same 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

scenes that are herein described, in many other 
parts of the vast untravelled Territory. It will 
take two or three decades or more, to make 
alterations in this region and change the condi- 
tion throughout. 

In recording, therefore, the scenes and hard- 
ships encountered in this northern country, I 
describe the experiences of one who to-day 
knocks about the Yukon region, the Copper 
River region, the Cook Inlet region, the Koyu- 
kuk, or the Kome District. My aim has been 
thi-oughout, to set down what I saw and en- 
countered as fully and simply as {)ossible, and I 
have endeavored to keep myself from sacrilicing 
accuracy to picturesqueness. That my duties led 
me to see more than would the ordinary travel- 
ler, I trust the following pages will bear witness. 

Let the reader, therefore, when he finds tedious 
or un])leasant passages, remember that they re- 
cord tedious or unpleasant incidents that one 
who travels this vast region cannot escape, as 
will be found should any of those who peruse 
these pages go through the Yukon Gold 
Diggings. 

Author. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. The Trip to Dyea 9 

II. Over the Chilkoot Pass 35 

III. The Lakes and the Yukon to Forty Mile . . 65 

IV. The Forty Mile Diggings 109 

V. The American Creek Diggings .... 156 

VI. The Birch Creek Diggings 161 

VII. The Mynook Creek Diggings . . . .207 

Vlll. The Lower Yukon 229 

IX. 8t. Michael's and San Franci.sco .... 264 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



" We of the Flannel Shirt and the Unblacked Boot 

An Alaskan Genealogical Tree 

Bacon, Lord of Alaska 

Lynn Canal 

Alaskan Women and Children 

Alaskan Indians and House 

Shooting the White Horse Rapid 

Talking it Over 

Alaska Humpback Salmon, Male and Female 

Washing Gravel in Sluice-Boxes 

' ' Tracking ' ' a Boat Upstream 

A "Cache" 

Native Dogs .... 

On the Tramp Again 

Hog'em Junction Road-House 

On Hog'em Gulch 

Custom House at Circle City 

The Break-up of the Ice on the Yukon 

A Yukon Canoe 

Indian Fish-traps 

In a Tent Beneath Spruce Trees 

Three-hatch Skin Boat, or Bidarka 

Eskimo Houses at St. Michael's 

A Native Doorway 

The Captured Whale 



Frontispiece i^ 
12 '^ 
21^ 
SI'-' 
40 ^ 
63 '^ 
93^ 
98 ' 
107 
131- 
137 "- 
140 "^ 
153 '- 

111'' 

177- 

190- 

213^ 

230'' 

231 '^ 

239^ 

261 ^ 

265" 

266'' 

271 ' 



The author wishes to express his indebtedness to Messrs. A. 
H. Brooks, F. C. Schrader, A. Beverly Smith, and the United 
States Geological Survey, for the use of photographs. 

7 



Through 
The Yukon Gold Diggings. 



Before the Klondike Discovery. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TRIP TO DYEA. 

IT was in 1896, before the Klondike boom. AVe 
were seated at the table of an excursion 
steamer, Avhich plied from Seattle northward 
among the thousand wonderful mountain islands 
of the Inland Passage. It was a journey replete 
with brilliant spectacles, through many pictur- 
esque fjords from whose unfathomable depths the 
bare steep cliffs rise to dizzy heights, while over 
them tumble in disorderly loveliness cataracts 
pure as snow, leaping from cliff to cliff in very 
wildness, like embodiments of the untamed 
spirits of nature. 

We had just passed Queen Charlotte Sound, 



10 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

where the swells from the open sea roll in dur- 
ing rough weather, and many passengers were 
ai)j)earing at the table with the pale face and 
defiant look which mark the unfortunate who 
has newly committed the crime of seasickness. 
It only enhanced the former stiffness, which we 
of the Hannel shirt and the unblacked boot 
had striven in vain to break — for these were peo- 
ple who were gathered from the corners of the 
earth, and each individual, or each tiny group, 
seemed to have some invisible negative attrac- 
tion for all the rest, like the little molecules 
which, scientists imagine, repel their neighbors 
to the very verge of explosion. They were all 
sight-seers of experience, come, some to do 
Alaska, some to rest from mysterious labors, 
some — but who shall fathom at a glance an ap- 
parently dull lot of a])parent snobs ? At any 
rate, one would have thought the everlasting 
hills would have shrunk back and the stolid 
glaciers blushed with vexation at the patronizing 
way Avith Avhicli they were treated in general. 
It was depressing — even European tourists' 
wordy enthusiasm over a mud puddle or a dung- 
hill would have been preferable. 



TUE TRIP TO DYE A. 11 

There are along this route all the benefits of a 
sea trip — the air, the rest — with none of its dis- 
advantages. So steep are the shores that the 
steamer may often lie alongside of them when 
she stops and run her gang-plank out on the 
rocks. These stops show the traveller the little 
human life there is in this vast and desolate 
country. There are villages of the native tribes, 
with dwellings built in imitation of the common 
American fashion, in front of which rise great 
totem poles, carved and painted, representing 
grinning and grotesque animal-like, or human- 
like, or dragon-like figures, one piled on top of 
the other up to the very top of the column. A 
sort of ancestral tree, these are said to be, — only 
to be understood with a knowledo-e of the sie^n 
symbolism of these people — telling of their tribe 
and lineage, of their great-grandfather the bear, 
and their great-grandmother the wolf or such 
strange things. 

The people themselves, with their heavy faces 
and their imitation of the European dress — for 
the tourist and the prospector have brought 
prosperity and the thin veneer of civilization to 
these southernmost tribes of Alaska — with their 




An Alaskan Genealogical Tree. 



12 



THE TRIP TO DYE A. 13 

Hauling neckerchief or head-kerchief of red and 
yellow silk that the silk-worm had no part in 
making, Ijut only the cunning Yankee weaver, 
paddle out in boats dug from the great ever- 
green trees that cover the hills so thickly, and 
bring articles made of sealskin, or skilfully 
woven baskets made out of the fibres of spruce 
roots, to sell to the passengers. Or the steamer 
may stop at a little hamlet of white pioneers, 
where there is fishing for halibut, with perhaps 
some mining for gold on a small scale ; then the 
practical men of the party, who liave hitherto 
been bored, can inquire whetlier the industry 
pays, and comtemplate in their suddenly awak- 
ened fancies the possibilities of a halibut syndi- 
cate, or another Tread well gold mine. So the 
artist gets his colors and forms, the business man 
sees wonderful possibilities in this shockingly 
unrailroaded wilderness, the tired may rest body 
and mind in the perfect ])eace and freedom from 
the human element, old ladies may sleep and 
young ones may flirt meantimes. 

All this would seem to prove that the passen- 
gers were neither professional nor business men, 
nor young nor old ladies — part of which appeared 



14 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

to me manifestly, and the rest probably untrue ; 
or else that they were all enthusiastic and inter- 
ested in the dumb British-American way, which 
sets down as vulgar any betrayal of one's self to 
one's neighbors. 

Some one at the table wearily and wearily in- 
quired when we should get to the Muir glacier, 
on which point we of the fiannel-shirted brother- 
hood were informed ; and incidentally we re- 
marked that we intended to leave the festivities 
before that time, in Juneau. 

" Oh my ! " said the sad-faced, middle-aged lady 
Avith circles about her eyes. " Stay in Juneau ! 
How dreadful ! Are you going as missionaries, 
or," here she wrestled for an idea, " or are you 
simply going." 

" We are going to the Yukon," we answered, 
'' from Juneau. You may have heard of the gold 
fields of the Yukon country." And strange and 
sweet to say, at this later day, no one had heard 
of the gold fields — that was before they had be- 
come the rage and the fashion. 

But the whole table warmed Avith interest — 
they were as lively busy bodies as other people 
and we were the first solution to the problems 



THE Tliir TO BYE A. 15 

Avliicli they had been putting to themselves con- 
cerning each other since the beginning of the 
trip. There was a fire of small questions. 

" How interesting ! " said an elderly 3^oung 
lady, who sat opposite. " I suppose you will have 
all kinds of experiences, just roughing it; and 
will you take your food with you on — er — wag- 
ons — or will you depend on the farmhouses along 
the way ? Only," she added hastily, detecting a 
certain gleam in the eye of her vis-a-vis, " I didn't 
think there were many farmhouses." 

" They will ride horses, Jane," said the bluff 
old gentleman who was evidently her father, so 
authoritatively that I dared not dispute him — 
" everybody does in that country." Then, as 
some glanced out at the precipitous mountain-side 
and dense timber, he added, " Of course, not here. 
In the interior it is flat, like our plains, and one 
rides on little horses, — I think they call them 
kaj^aks — I have read it," he said, looking at me 
fiercely. Then, as we were silent, he continued, 
more condescendingly, " I have roughed it my- 
self, when I was young. We used to go hunting 
every fall in Pennsylvania, when I was a boy, 
and once two of us went off together and were 



l(i TlinuUGH THE YUKON COLD DKiGINaS. 

gone a week, just riding over the roughest coun- 
try roads and into the mountains on horseback. 
If our colfee had not run out we would have 
stayed longer." 

" But isn't it dreadfully cold up there ? " said 
the sweet brown-eyed girl, with a look in her 
,eyes that wakened in our hearts the first momen- 
tary rebellion against our exile. " And the wild 
animals ! You will suffer so." 

" I used to know an explorer," said the business 
man with the green necktie, who had been dragged 
to the shrine of Xature by his wife. He had 
brought along an entire copy of the New York 
Screamer, and buried himself all day long in its 
parti-colored mysteries. " lie told me many 
things that might be useful to you, if I could re- 
member them. About spearing whales — for food, 
you know — you will have to do a lot of that. I 
Avish I could have you meet him sometime ; he 
could tell you much more than I can. Somebod}^ 
said there was gold uj) there. Was it you? 
Well don't get frozen up and di'ift across the 
Pole, like Nansen, just to get where the gold is. 
But I suppose the nuggets " 

" Let's go on deck, Jane," said the old gentle- 



THE TRIP TO DYEA. 17 

UKUi ; — then to us, politely but firmly, " I have 
been much interested in 3'Our account, and shall 
be glad to hear more later." "We had not said 
anything yei. 

We disembarked at Juneau. AYe had watched 
the shore for nearly the whole trip without per- 
ceiving a rift in the mountains through which it 
looked feasible to pass, and at Juneau the outlook 
or uplook was no better. Those who have been 
to Juneau (and they are now many) know how 
slight and almost insecure is its foothold ; how it 
is situated on an irregular hilly area which looks 
like a great landslide from the mountains tower- 
ing above, whose sides are so sheer that the 
wagon road which winds up the gulch into Silver 
Bow basin is for some distance in the nature of a 
bridge, resting on wooden supports and hugging 
close to the steep rock wall. The excursionists 
tarried a little here, buying furs at extortionate 
prices from the natives, fancy baskets, and little 
ornaments which are said to be made in Connec- 
ticut. 

In the hotel the proprietor arrived at our busi- 
ness in the shortest possible time, by the method 
of direct questioning. He was from Colorado, I 



18 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

judged — all the men I have known that look like 
him come from Colorado. There was also a 
heavily bearded man dressed in ill-fitting store- 
clothes, and with a necktie which had the strang- 
est air of being ill at ease, who was lounging 
near by, smoking and spitting on the floor con- 
templatively. 

" Here, Pete," said the proprietor, " I want you 
to meet these gentlemen." He pronounced the 
last word with such a peculiar intonation that one 
felt sure he used it as synonomous \\\i\\ " tender- 
feet " or " paperlegs " or other terms by which 
Alaskans designate greenhorns. 

I had rather had him call me "this feller." 
" He says he's goin' over the Pass, an' maybe 
you can help each other." Pete smiled genially 
and crushed my hand, looking me full in the eye 
the while, doubtless to see how I stood the or- 
deal. " Pete's an old timer," continued the 
hotel-man, "one of the Yukon pioneers. Been 
over that Pass — how many times, Pete, three 
times, ain't it ? " 

"Dis makes dirt time," answered Pete, with 
a most unique dialect, which nevertheless was 
Scandinavian. " Virst time, me an' Frank Dens- 



THE TRIP TO DYE A. 19 

more, Whisky Bill an' de odder boys. Dat was 
summer som we washed on Stewart River, on'y 
us — fetched out britty peek sack dat year — eh ? " 
He had a curious way of retaining the Scandi- 
navian relative pronoun som in his English, in- 
stead of ^vho or that. 

" You bet, Pete," answered the other, " you 
painted the town ; done your duty by us." 

" Ja," said Pete, " blewed it in ; mostly in 
'Frisco. "Was king dat winter till dust was all 
been spent. Saw tings dat was goot ; saw udder 
tings was too bad, efen for Alaskan miner. One 
time enough. I tink dese cities kind of bad fer 
people. So I get out. Sez I, — ' I jes' got time 
to get to Lake Bennett by time ice breaks,' so I 
light out." He smiled happily as he said this, 
as a man might talk of going home, then con- 
tinued, "Den secon' dime I get a glaim Forty 
Mile, Miller Greek,— dat's really Sixty Mile, but 
feller gits dere f'm Forty Mile. Had a pardner, 
but he went down to Birch Greek, den I work 
my glaim alone." 

He put his hand down in his trousers pocket 
and brought up a large flat angular piece of gold, 
two inches long ; it had particles of quartz 



20 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

scattered tlirough, and was in places rusty with 
iron, but was mostly smooth and showed the 
w^earing it must have had in his pocket. He 
shoved the yellow lump into my hand. " Dat 
nugget was de biggest in my glaim dat I found ; 
anoder feller he washed over tailin's f'm my 
glaim efter, an' he got bigger nuggets, he saj^s, 
but I tinks he's dam liar. Anyhow, I get 
little sack an' I went down 'Frisco, an' I blewed 
it in again. Now I go back once more." 

We talked awhile and finall}^ agreed to make 
the trip to Forty Mile together, since Ave were 
all bound to this place, and Pete, unlike most 
miners and prospectors, had no "pardner." We 
were soon engaged in making the rounds of the 
shops, laying in our supplies — beans, bacon, 
dried fruit, flour, sugar, cheese, and, most pre- 
cious of all, a bucket of strawberry jam. We 
made up our minds to revel in jam just as long 
as we were able, even if we ended up on plain 
flour three times a day. For a drink we took 
tea, which is almost universally used in Alaska, 
instead of coffee, since a certain weight of it will 
last as long as many times tlie same weight of 
coffee : moreover, there is some quality in this 



THE TRIP TO DYE A. 



21 



beverage which makes it particuhirly adapted to 
the vigorous climate and conditions of this north- 
ern country. Men who have never used tea ac- 
quire a fondness for it in Ahiska, and will drink 




BAroy, Lord of Alaska. 



vast quantities, especially in the winter. The 
Hussians, themselves the greatest tea-drinkers of 
all European nations, long ago introduced 
"Tschai"to the Alaskan natives ; and through- 



22 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

out the country they will beg for it from every 
white man they meet, or will travel hundreds of 
miles and barter their furs to obtain it. 

Concerning the amount of supplies it is neces- 
sary to take on a trip like ours, it may be re- 
marked that three pounds of solid food to each 
man per day, is liberal. As to the proportion, 
no constant estimate can be made, men's appe- 
tites varying with the nature of the articles in 
the rations and their temporary tastes. On this 
occasion Pete picked out the supplies, laying in 
what he judged to be enough of each article : but 
it appeared afterwards that a man may be an ex- 
perienced pioneer, and yet never have solved the 
problem of reasonably accurate rations, for some 
articles were soon exhausted on our trip, while 
others lasted throughout the summer, after 
which we were obliged to bequeath the remain- 
der to the natives. Camp kettles, and frying- 
})ans, of course, were in the outfit, as well as 
axes, boat building tools, whip-saw, draw-shave, 
chisels, hammers, nails, screws, oakum and pitch. 
It was our plan to build a boat on the lakes 
which are the source of the Yukon, felling the 
spruce trees, and then with a whip-saw slicing off 



THE TRIP TO DYE A. 23 

boards, which when put together woukl carry 
us down the river to the gold diggings. 

For our personal use we had a single small 
tent, A-shaped, but with half of one of the 
large slanting sides cut out, so that it could be 
elevated like a curtain, and, being secured at the 
corners by poles or tied by ropes to trees, made 
an additional shelter, while it opened up the in- 
terior of the tent to the fresh air or the warmth 
of the camp-fire outside. Blankets for sleeping, 
and rubber blankets to lay next to the ground to 
keep out the wet ; the best mosquito-netting or 
" bobinet " of hexagonal mesh, and stout gaunt- 
leted cavalry gloves, as protection against the 
mosquitoes. For personal attire, anything. 
Dress on the frontier, above all in Alaska, is 
always varied, picturesque, and unconventional. 
Flannel or woollen shirts, of course, are univer- 
sal ; and for foot gear the heavy laced boot is 
the best. 

As usual, we were led by the prospective ter- 
rors of cold water in the lakes and streams to 
invest in rubber boots reaching to the hip, which, 
however, did not prove of such use as antici- 
pated. We had brought with us canvas bags 



24 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

designed for packing, or carrying loads on the 
back, of a model long used in the Lake Superior 
Avoods. They were provided with suitable straps 
for the shoulders, and a broad one for the top of 
the head, so that the toiler, bending over, might 
support a large part of the load b}^ the aid of his 
rigid neck. These we utilized also as receptacles 
for our clothes and other personal articles. 

Other men were in Juneau also, bound for the 
Yukon, — not like the hordes that the Klondike 
bi'ought up later from the States, many of whom 
turned back before even crossing the passes, but 
small parties of determined men. We ran upon 
them here and there. In the hotel we sat down 
at the table \vith a self-contained man with a 
suggestion of recklessness or carelessness in his 
face, and soon found that he was bound over the 
same route as ourselves, on a newspaper mission. 
Danlon, as we may call him, had brouglit his 
numservant with him, like the Englishman he 
was. He was a great traveller, and full of inter- 
esting anecdotes of Afghanistan, or Borneo, or 
some other of the earth's corners. He had en- 
gaged to go with him a friend of Pete's, another 
pioneer, Co(jper by name, short, blonde and 



THE TRIP TO DYE A. 25 

powerfully built. Between us, we arranged for 
a tug to take us the hundred miles of water 
which still lay between us and Byea, where the 
land journey begins ; after which transaction, 
we sat down to eat our last dinner in civilization. 
How tearfully, almost, we remarked that this 
was the last plum-pudding we should have for 
many a moon ! 

We sailed, or rather steamed away, from 
Juneau in the evening. Our tug had been de- 
signed for freight, and had not been altered in 
the slio'htest decree for the accommodation of 
passengers. Her floor space, too, was limited, so 
that while ten or twelve men might have made 
themselves very comfortable, the fifty or sixty 
\vlio finally appeared on board found hard work 
to dispose of themselves in any fashion. She 
had been originally engaged for our two parties, 
but new passengers continually applied, who, 
from the nature of things, could hardly be re- 
fused. So the motley crowd of strangers hud- 
dled together, the engines began clanking, and 
the lights of Juneau soon dropped out of sight, 
as we steamed up Lynn Canal under the shadow 
of the o'iant mountains. 



2G THllOUGH THE YUKON COLD DIGGINGS. 

Our fellow-passengers were mostly prospec- 
tors ; nearly all newcomers, as we could see by 
the light of the lantern which hung up in the 
bare apartment whei'e we were. They had their 
luggage and outfit with them, which they })iled 
up and sat or slept on, to make sure they would 
not lose it. There were men with grey beards 
and strapping boys Avith down on their chins ; 
white handed men and those whose huge horny 
palms showed a life of toil ; all strange, uneasy, 
and quiet at first, but soon they began to talk 
conlidentiall}^ as men will whom chance throws 
together in strange places. 

There was a Catholic priest bound to his 
mission among the Eskimos on the lower Yukon, 
— calm, patient, sweet-tempered, and cheerful of 
s})eech ; and near him was a noted Alaskan pio- 
neer and trader, bound on some wild trip or 
other alone. There was another Alaskan — one 
of those who settle down and take native women 
as mates and are therefore somewhat scornfully 
called " squaw-men " ; he had been to Juneau as 
the countryman visits the metropolis, and had 
brought back with him abundant evidence of the 
worthlessness of the no-liquor laws of Alaska, in 



THE TRIP TO DYE A. 27 

the sliapo of a lordly drunk, and the material for 
many more, in a large demijohn, which he 
guarded carefull3\ Tlie conversation among 
this crowd was of the directest sort, as it is al- 
ways on the frontier. 

"Where are yoa goin', pardner? ProspecLin', 
I reckon ? " 

Then inquiries as to what each could tell the 
other concerning the conditions of the land we 
were to explore, mostly unknown to all : and 
straightway Pete and Cooper were constituted 
authorities, by virtue of their previous experi- 
ence, and were listened to with great deference 
by the rest. The night was not calm, and the 
little craft swashed monotonously into the 
waves. One by one the travellers lay down on 
the bare dusty floor and slept ; and so limited 
was the room that the last found it difficult to 
find a place. 

Glancing around to find a vacant nook I was 
struck with the })icturesqueness of the scene. 
Under the lantern the last talkers — the Catholic 
priest in a red sweater, smoking a bent pipe, the 
professional traveller and book-maker, and 
another Englishman Avith smooth face and oily 



28 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD VIGGINGS. 

manners, — were discussing matters with as much 
reserve and (k^corum as they would in a draw- 
ing-room. Around them hiy stretched out, over 
the floor, under the table, and even on it, mot- 
ley-clad men, breathing heavily or staring with 
wide fixed eyes overhead. The pioneer had 
gone to sleep lying on his back and was snoring 
at intervals, but by a physical feat hard to 
understand, retained his quid of tobacco, which 
he chewed languidly through it all. The only 
space I could find was in a narrow passageway 
leading to the pilot-house. Here I coiled ni}^- 
self, hugging closely to the Avail, but it was dark 
and throughout the night I was awakened by 
heavy boots accidentally placed on my body or 
head ; yet I was too sleepy to hear the apologies 
and straightway slept again. 

It was natural, under the circumstances, that 
all should be early risers, and we were raven- 
ously hungry for the breakfast which was tardily 
prepared. The only table was covered with oil- 
cloth, and was calculated for four, but about eight 
managed to crowd around it : yet with all pos- 
sible haste the last had breakfast about noon. 
We sat down where a momentary opening was 



THE TIUF TO DYEA. 29 

offered at the third or fourth sitting. A moment 
later a couple of })rospectors appeared who ap- 
parently had counted on })laces, and the hungry 
stomach of one of them prompted some very 
audible mutterings to the effect that all men 
were born free and equal, and he was as good as 
•Awy one. The priest immediately got up, and 
with sincere kindness offered his seat, which so 
overcame the man with shame that he politely 
refused and retired ; but the rest of us insisted 
on crowding together and making room for him. 
And for the remainder of the trip a more punc- 
tiliously polite individual than this same pros- 
pector could not be found. 

After each round of eaters, the tin plates and 
cups and the dingy black knives and forks were 
seized by a busy dishwasher, who performed a 
rapid hocus-pocus over them, in which a tiny 
dishpan fflled with hot water that came finally 
to have the appearance and consistency of a 
hodge-podge, played an important part ; then 
they were skillfully shyed on to the table again. 
I looked at my plate. Swimming in the shallow 
film of dish-water, were flakes of beans, shreds 
of corned-beef and streaks of a})ple-sauce, which 



30 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

took me back in fancy to all the ditferent tables 
tbat had eaten before : the boat was swaying 
heavily and I gulped down ni}' stomach before I 
passed the plate to the dishwasher and suggested 
wiping. He was a very young man, remarkably 
dashing, like the hero of a dime novel. He was 
especially proticient in profanity and kept up a 
running fire of insults on the cook. lie took the 
plate and eyed me scornfully, witheringly. 

" Seems to me some tenderfeet is mighty per- 
tickler," said he, with a very evident personal 
application, then swabbed out the plate with 
a towel, the sight of which made me turn and 
stare at the spruce-clad mountain-sides, in a des- 
perate effort to elevate my mind and my stouiach 
above trifles. 

" This is no place for a white man," said a 
prospector who had been staring out of the door 
all day. "Good enough for bears and — and — Si- 
wash, maybe." Most, I think shared more or 
less openly his depression, for the shores of Lynn 
Canal are no more attractive to the adventurer 
than the rest of the bleak Alaskan mountain 
coast. 

It was a chilh", drizzling day. The clouds or- 



32 THBOUGU THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

dinarily hid the tops of the great steep moun- 
tains, so that these lool^ed as if they might be 
walls that reached clear up to the heavens, or, 
when they broke away, exposed lofty snowy 
peaks, magnificent and gigantic in the mist. AVe 
caught glimpses of wrinkled glaciers, crawling 
down the valleys like huge jointed living things, 
in whose fronts the pure blue ice showed faintly 
and coldly. Here and there waterfalls appeared, 
leaping hundreds of feet from crag to crag, and 
all along was the rugged brown shore, with the 
surf lashing the cliffs, and no place where even a 
boat might land. All men, whether they clearly 
perceive it or not, find in the phenomena of Na- 
ture some figurative meanings, and are depressed 
or elevated by them. 

We anchored in the lee of a bare rounded 
mountain that night, it being too rough to attempt 
landing, and the next morning were off Dyea, 
where we were to go ashore. The surf was still 
heavy, but the captain ventured out in a small boat 
to get the scow in which passengers and goods 
were generally conveyed to the shore ; for the 
water was shallow, and the steamer had to keep a 
mile or so from the land. In the surf the boat 



THE TRIP TO DYE A. 33 

capsized, and we could see the captain bobbing 
lip and down in the breakers, now on top, now un- 
der his boat, in the icy water. The dishwasher, 
who evidently knew the course of action in all 
such emergencies from dime-novel precedents, 
yelled out " Man the lifeboat ! " The captain 
had taken the only boat there was. The entire 
crew, it may be mentioned, consisted, besides the 
dishwasher and the captain, of the sailor, who 
Avas also the cook. The duty of manning the 
lifeboat — had there been one — would thus ap- 
parently have devolved on the sailor, but he 
grew pale and swore that he did not know how 
to row and that he had just come from driving 
a milk- wagon in San Francisco. A party of 
prospectors became engaged in a heated discus- 
sion as to whether, if there had been a boat on 
board, it would not have been foolish to venture 
out in it, even for the sake of trying to rescue the 
captain ; some urging the claims of heroism, and 
others loudl}' proclaiming that they would not 

risk their lives in any such d d foolish way as 

that. 

However, all this was only the froth and ex- 
citement of the moment. The captain hauled his 



34 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

boat out of the breakers, skillfully launched it 
again, and came on board, shivering but calm, a 
strapping, reckless Cape Breton Scotch-Canadian. 
In due course of time afterwards the scow was 
also got out, and we transferred our outfits to it 
and sat on top of them, while we were slowly 
propelled ashore by long oars. 



CHAPTER II. 

OVER THE OHILKOOT PASS. 

AT this time there was only one building 
at Dyea — a log house used as a store for 
trading with the natives, and known by the name 
of Healy's Post. (Two years afterwards, on re- 
turning to the place, I found a mushroom, sawed- 
board town of several thousand people ; but that 
was after the Klondike boom.) We pitched our 
tents near the shore that night, spreading our 
blankets on the ground. 

In the morning all were bustling around, fol- 
lowing out their separate plans for getting over 
the Pass as soon as possible. Of the different 
notches in the mountain wall by which one may 
cross the coast range and arrive at the head 
waters of the Yukon, the Chilkoot, which is 
reached from Dyea, was at that time the only 
one practicable. It was known that Jack Dal- 
ton, a pioneer trader of the country, was wont to 
go over the Chilkat Pass, a little further south, 

35 



:J(! through the YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

while Scliwatka, Hayes, and Russell, in an ex- 
pedition of which few people ever heard, had 
crossed by the way of the Taku lliver and the 
Taku Pass to the Ilootalinqua or Teslin River, 
which is one of the important streams that unite 
to make \\\) the upper Yukon. But the White 
Pass, which afterwards became the most popular, 
and which lies just east of the Chilkoot, was at 
that time entirely unused, being a rough long- 
trail that recpiired clearing to make it servicea- 
ble. 

The Chilkoot, though the highest and steepest 
of the ])asses, was yet the shortest and the most 
free from obstructions ; it had been, before the 
advent of the white adventurer in Alaska, the 
avenue of travel for the handful of half-starved 
interior natives who were wont to come down 
occasionally to the coast, for the purpose of 
trading. The coast Indians are, as they always 
have been, a more numerous, more prosperous, 
stronger and more quarrelsome class, for the sea 
yielded them, directly and indirectly, a varied 
and bountiful subsistence. The particular tribe 
who occu})ied the Dyea region, — the Chilkoots — 
were accustomed to stand guard over the Pass 



OVER THE CIIILKOOT PASS. 37 

and to exact tribute from all the interior natives 
who came in ; and when the first white men ap- 
peared, the natives tried in the same way to 
hinder them from crossing and so destroying 
their monopoly of petty traffic. For a short 
time this really prevented individuals and small 
parties from exploring, but in 1878 a party of 
nineteen prospectors, under the leadership of 
Edmund Bean, was organized, and to overcome 
the hostility of the Chilkoots, a sort of military 
" demonstration " was arranged by the officers in 
charge at Sitka. The little gunboat stationed 
there proceeded to Dyea, and, anchoring, fired a 
few blank shots from her heaviest (or loud§gt) 
guns ; afterwards the officer in charge went on 
shore, and made a sort of unwritten treaty or 
agreement with the thoroughly frightened na- 
tives, by which the prospectors, and all others 
who came after, were allowed to proceed un- 
molested. 

The fame of that " war-canoe " spread from 
Indian to Indian throughout the length and 
breadth of the vast territory of Alaska. One can 
hear it from the natives in many places a thou- 
sand miles from where the incident occurred, 



3ft THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

and each time the story is so changed and dis- 
guised, that it might be taken for a myth by an 
enthusiastic mythologist, and carefully preserved, 
with all its vagaries, and very likely proved to 
be an allegory of the seasons, or the travels of 
the sun, moon, and stars. In proportion as the 
story reached more and more remote regions, the 
statements of the proportions of the canoe be- 
came more and more exaggerated, and the 
thunder of the guns more terrible, and the num- 
ber of warriors on board increased faster than 
Jacob's flock. The gunboat was the butt for 
many good-natured jokes from navy officers, on 
account of her small dimensions and frail con- 
struction. Yet the natives a little way into the 
interior will tell you of the wonderful snow-white 
war-canoe, half a mile long, armed with guns a 
hundred yards or so in length ; and by the time 
one gets in the neighborhood of the Arctic Cir- 
cle, he will hear of the " great ship " (the native 
will perhaps point to some mountain eight or ten 
miles away) " as long as from here to the moun- 
tain " ; how she vomited out smoke, fire and 
ashes like a volcano, and at the same time ex- 
ploded her guns and killed many people, and 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 39 

how she ran forwards and backwards, with the 
wind or against it, at a terrific speed, — a forniida- 
Ijle monster, truly ! 

At the time of our trip (in 1890) the immigra- 
tion into the Yukon gold country had gone on, 
in a small way, for some years ; several mining 
districts were well developed, and the natives 
had settled down into the habit of helping the 
white man, for a substantial remuneration. 
These natives were all camped or housed close to 
the shore. The}'^ were odd and interesting at 
first sight. The men were of fair size, strong, 
stolid, and sullen-looking; clothed in cheap civil- 
ized garb in this summer season, — it was in the 
early part of June — in overalls and jumpers, with 
now and then a woollen Guernsey jacket, and 
with straw hats on their heads. The women 
were neither beautiful nor attractive. Many 
of them had covered their faces with a mixture 
of soot and grease, which stuck well. Other 
women had their chins tattooed in stripes with 
the indelible ink of the cuttlefish — sometimes 
one, sometimes three, sometimes five or six 
stripes. This custom I found afterwards among 
the women of many tribes and peoples in differ- 



40 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

ent parts of Alaska, and it seems, in some regions 
at least, to Ije a mark of aristocracy, indicating 
the wealth of the parents at the time the girl- 
child was born. All the natives were living in 
tents or rude wooden huts, in the most primitive 
fashion, cooking by a smouldering tire outside, 




Alaskan Women and Children. 



and sleeping packed close together, wra})})ed in 
skins and dirty blankets. 

It had been the custom of the miners to engage 
these natives to carry their outfits for them, from 
Dyea, and some (^f the men who had come with 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 41 

US, immediately hired packers for the whole ti'ip 
to Lalve Lindeman, paying them, I think, eleven 
cents a pound for everything carried. The store- 
keeper, however, had been constructing a foot 
trail for about half the distance and had bought 
a few pack-horses, and we engaged these to trans- 
port our outfit as far as possible, trusting to In- 
dians for the rest. We had brought with us from 
Juneau, on a last sudden idea, a lot of lumber 
with which to build our boat when we should get 
to Lake Lindeman, and here the transportation 
of this lumber became a great problem. To pack 
it on the horses was an impossibility, and the In- 
dians refused absolutely to take the boards unless 
they were cut in two, which would destroy much 
of their value, and even if this were done, de- 
manded an enormous price for the carrying ; 
therefore it was concluded to leave them behind, 
and trust to good luck in the future. 

In one way or another, everybody was furnished 
with some kind of transportation, and the whole 
visible population of Dyea, permanent or tran- 
sient, began moving up the valley. Some of the 
natives put their loads in wooden dugout canoes, 
which they paddled, or pushed with poles, six 



42 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

or seven miles up tlie small stream which goes 
by the name of the Dyea River ; others took 
their packs on their backs, and led the way along 
the trail. Not stronger, j^erhaps, than white men, 
the Chilkoots showed themselves remarkably pa- 
tient and enduring, carrying heavy loads rapidly 
long distances without resting. Not only the 
men, but the women and children, made pack-ani- 
mals of themselves. I remember a slight boy of 
thirteen or so, who could not have weighed over 
eighty pounds, carrying a load of one hundred. 
Tlie dog belonging to the same family, a medium- 
sized animal, waddled along with a load of about 
forty pounds ; he seemed to Ije imbued with the 
same spirit as the rest, and although the load 
nearly dragged him to the ground, lie was patient 
and persevering. 

The trail was a tiresome one, being mostly 
through loose sand and gravel alongside the 
stream : several times we had to wade across. 
As we went up, the valley became narrower, and 
we had views of the glacier above us, which 
reached long slender fingers down the little val- 
leys from the great ice-mass on the mountain. 
It was evident that the glacier had once filled the 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 43 

entire valley. As soon as we were up a little we 
were obliged to clamber over the piled-up boulders 
in the strips of moraine which the ice had left ; 
in places the rows were so regular that they had 
the appearance of stone walls. 

AVe were seized with fatigue and a terriljle 
hunger. " You haven't a sandwich about your 
clothes, have you ? " I asked of some prospectors 
whom I overtook resting in the lee of a cliff. 
Here the stream becomes so rough and rapid that 
the natives can work their canoes no further, and 
so the place has been somewhat pompously named 
on some maps the " Head of Navigation," by 
which most people infer that a gunboat may steam 
up this far. 

" No, by , pardner," was the answer, " if 

we had, we'd a' eaten it ourselves before now." 

Crossing the stream for the last time, on the 
trunk of a fallen tree, which swayed alarmingly, 
the trail led up steeply among the bare rocks of 
the hillside. All the pedestrian groups had sep- 
arated into singles by this time, every one going 
his "ain gait " according to his own ideas and 
strength, and in no mood for conversation. I 
overtook a young Irishman, who had started out 



44 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

with a pack of about seventy-tive pounds ; he was 
resting, and quite downcast with fatigue and 
hunger. 

Just where we stopped some one had left a load 
of canned corn and tomatoes. We eyed them 
hungrily, and gravely discussed our rights to help- 
ing ourselves. We did not know the owners and 
could not find them — certainly they were none 
of those that had come with us. We could not 
take them and leave money, for although the na- 
tives respected " caches " of provisions, we could 
not expect them to do the same with money. 
" Again," said the Irishman, " the feller what lift 
them here may be dipinding on every blissed can 
of swate corn for some little schayme of his, 
while we have plenty grub of our own, if we can 
on'y get our flippers on it." 

At this period, all through Alaska, provisions 
and other property was regarded with utmost re- 
spect. Old miners and prospectors have told me 
that they have left provisions exposed in a 
" cache " for a year, and on returning after having 
been hundreds of miles away, have found them 
untouched, although nearly starving natives had 
passed them almost daily all winter. In the 



OVEE THE CHILKOOT PASS. 45 

mining camps the same custom prevailed. Locks 
were unknown on the doors. AYhen a white man 
arrived at the hut of an absent prospector, he 
helped himself, taking enough provisions from 
the " cache " to keep him out of want, till he 
could make the next stage of his journey, and 
wrote on paper or on the w^ooden door, " I have 
taken twenty pounds of flour, ten pounds of 
bacon, five pounds of beans, and a little tea," 
signed his name, and departed. It was not a bill, 
but an acknowledgment ; and to have left with- 
out making the acknowledgment constituted a 
theft, in the eyes of the miner population. This 
condition of primitive honesty did not last, how- 
ever. Later, with the Klondike boom, came the 
ordinary light-fingeredness of civilization, and a 
state of affairs unique and instructive passed 
away. 

We arrived finally at the end of the horse- 
trail, a spot named Sheep Camp by an early 
party of prospectors who killed some mountain 
sheep here. Steep, rocky and snowy mountains 
overhang the valley, with a vast glacier not far 
up ; and here, since our visit, have occurred a 
number of fatal disasters, from snowslides and 



46 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

landslides. Pete had arrived before us : lie had 
set up a Yukon camp stove of sheet iron, had 
kindled fire therein and was engaged in the 
preparation of slapjacks and fried bacon, a sight 
that affected us so that we had to go and sit 
back to, and out of reach of the smell, till Pete 
yelled out in vile Chinook " Muk-a-muk altay ! 
Bean on the table ! " There were no beans and 
no table, of course, but that was Pete's facetious 
way of putting it. 

Further than Sheep Camp the horse-trail was 
quite too rocky and steep for the animals ; so we 
tried to engage Indians to take our freight for 
the remaining part of the distance across the 
Pass. Up to the time of our arrival, the regular 
price for packing from Dyea to Lake Linderaan 
had been eleven cents a pound. For the trans- 
portation by horses over the first half of the dis- 
tance — thirteen miles — we had paid five cents a 
pound, and we had expected to pay the Indians 
six cents for the renuiinder of the trip. In the 
first place, however, it was difficult to gather the 
Indians together, for they were off in bands in 
different parts of the neighljoring country, on 
expeditions of their own; and when they arrived 



OVEli THE CHILKOOT PASS. 47 

in Sheep Camp, Avith a bluster and a racket, they 
were so set up by the number of men that were 
waiting for their help that they took it into their 
heads to be in no hurry about working. Finally 
they sent a spokesman who, with an insolence 
rather natural than assumed for the occasion, de- 
manded nine cents per pound instead of six, for 
packing to Lake Lindeman. It was a genuine 
strike -the revolt of organized labor against 
helpless capital. 

Being in a hurry to get ahead and fulfill 
our mission, we should doubtless have yielded ; 
but there were many parties camped here 
besides ourselves — namely, all those who had 
been our fellow-sufferers on board the Scram- 
bler — and a general consultation l^eing held 
among the gold-hunters, it was decided that 
the proposed increase of pay for labor would 
prove ruinous to their business. A committee 
representing these gentlemen waited on us and 
begged us not to yield to the strikers, in the care- 
lessness of our hearts and our plethoric pocket- 
books, but to consider that in doing so the}^ — the 
prospectors — must follow suit, the precedent be- 
ing once established ; whereas they were poor 



48 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

men, and could not afford the extra price. To 
this view of the case we agreed, considering our- 
selves as a part of the Sheep Camp community, 
rather than as an individual party ; and the 
English traveller (who was likewise suspected of 
being overburdened with funds, and therefore 
likely to be careless with them) was also waited 
upon and persuaded to resist the demands. So 
everybody camped and waited, and was ob- 
stinate, for several days : not only the white 
men, but the Siwash. 

By way of digression it may be mentioned that 
the word Siwash is indiscriminately applied by 
the white men to all the Alaskan natives, to 
whatever race — and there are many — they be- 
long. The word therefore has no definite mean- 
ing, but corresponds roughly to the popular 
name of " nigger " for all very dark-skinned 
races, or " Dago " for Spaniards, Portuguese, Ital- 
ians, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, and a host of 
other black-haired, olive-skinned nations. The 
name has been said to be a corruption of the 
French word " sauvage," — savage, — and this 
seems very likely. 

Like the corresponding epithets cited, the word 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 49 

Siwasli has a certain familiar, facetious, and con- 
temptuous value, and this may have been the 
idea which prompted its use just now, when 
speaking of the natives as strikers and opponents. 
At any rate, they took the situation in a careless, 
matter-of-fact way ; cooked, ate, slept, borrowed 
our kettles, begged our tea and stole our sugar 
with utmost cheerfulness, and were apparently 
contented and happy. We white men likewise 
tried to conceal our restlessness, and chatted in 
each others' tents, admired the scenery, or went 
rambling up the steep mountain-sides in search 
of experiences, exercise, and rocks. Some of us 
clambered over the huge boulders, each as big as 
a New England cottage, which had been brought 
here by glacial action, then up over the steep 
cliffs, Avrenched and crumbling from the crush- 
ing of the same mighty force, supporting our- 
selves, — when the rocks gave way beneath our 
feet and Avent rattling down the cliff, — by the 
tough saplings that had taken root in the crevices, 
and grew out horizontally, or even inclined down- 
wards, bent by continuous snowslides. So we 
reached the base of the glacier, where a sheer 
wall of clear blue ice rose to a height which we 



50 THliOUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

estimated at three or four hundred feet, back of 
which stretched a great uneven white ice field, 
as far as the eye coukl see, clear up till the view 
Avas lost in the mists of the upper mountains ; 
an ice field seamed with great yawning crevasses, 
where the blue of the ice gleamed as streaks on 
the dead white. 

One morning we heard a yell from the Siwash, 
and soon they came running over the little knoll 
which separated our camp from theirs, and be- 
gan grabbing the articles that belonged to some 
of the miners. "We were at a loss to know the 
meaning of what seemed at first to be a very un- 
ceremonious proceeding, but when we saw the 
miners, with many shamefaced glances at us, 
help the natives in the distribution of the ma- 
terial, we realized that these men had forsaken 
us and their resolutions ; so greedy were they to 
reach the land of gold that they had gone to the 
natives and agreed to pay them the demanded 
rates on condition that they should have all the 
packers themselves, leaving none to us. We let 
these men and their natives go in peace, without 
even a reproach : less than a week afterwards we 
had the deep satisfaction of passing them on the 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 51 

trail, and even in lending thein a band in a series 
of little difficulties for which, in their haste, they 
had come unprepared. The veteran miner in 
Alaska is a splendid, open-hearted, generous 
fellow ; the newcomer, or " chicharko," is a 
thing to be avoided. 

After this we had to wait till the natives had 
got back from carrying the miners' supplies, and 
then we agreed, with what grace we could, to 
pay the price that the others had. The Indians 
were quite a horde, capable of carrying in one 
trip all the supplies belonging to our party and 
that of the English traveller. Since they were 
paid by the pound they vied in taking enormous 
loads; the largest carried was 161 pounds, but 
all the men's packs ranged from 125 to 150 
pounds. Women and half-grown boys carried 
packs of 10(» pounds. It was a " Stick " or in- 
terior Indian, named at the mission To//i, but 
originally possessed of a fearful and unpro- 
nounceable name, who carried the largest load. 
He was barely tolerated and was somewhat 
badgered by the Chilkoots, hence he fled much 
to the society of the whites, and would squat 
near for hours, always smiling horribly when 



5-2 TlinOUGII THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

looked at; he claimed to be a cliief among his 
own wretched peo})le, and spent all his spare 
time in blackening his face, reserving rings 
around the eyes which he smeared with i-ed 
ochre — having done which, he grinned ghastly 
approval of himself ! 

Pete started over the Pass in advance of the 
part\% to })rocure for us if possible a boat at 
Lake Lindenuin. 

" Dis is dirt time I gross Pass," said Pete. 
" Yirst dime I dake leedle pack — den I vos blayed 
out ; nex' dime I dake leedle roll of clo'es — den 
I vos blayed out too, py chimney : dis dime I 
dake notting — den I vill be blayed out too ! " 

The natives, after much shouting and con- 
fusion and wrangling, made up their packs about 
noon, and started out, we following; just before 
getting to snowdine they stopped in a place 
where a chaotic mass of boulders form a trifling 
shelter, grateful to wild beasts or wild men like 
these. Here they deposited their loads, and 
with exasperating indifl'erence composed them- 
selves to sleep. We tried to persuade them to 
go f)n, but to no avail, and we discovered after- 
wards, as often liappened to us in our dealing 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. ^^ 

with the natives, that they were right. It was 
June, and yet the snow Lay deep on all the upper 
parts of the Pass ; and in the long, warm days 
it became soft and mushy, making travel very 
difficult, especially with heavy packs. As soon 
as the sun went down behind the hills, however, 
the air became cool, and a hard crust formed, so 
that walking was much better. 

We left the natives and followed a trail which 
led among the boulders and then higher up the 
mountain, where many moccasined feet had left 
a deep path through the icy snow. We tramped 
onward, sometimes on hard ice, sometimes 
through soft snow, strung out in Indian file, 
saying nothing, saving our breath for our lungs ; 
at times the crust rang hollow to our tread, and 
beneath us we could hear torrents raging. It 
was about eight o'clock at night when we 
started, and the sun in the narrow valley had al- 
ready gone down behind the high glaciers on 
the mountain-tops, even at this latitude and in 
the month of June ; so the long northern twi- 
light which is Alaska's substitute for night in 
the summer months soon began to settle down 
upon us. At the same time the moisture from 



54 TIIROUail THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

the snow which all day long liad been lying in 
the sun, began cooling into mists, changeful and 
of different thicknesses ; and in the dim light 
gave to everything a weird and unnatural aspect. 
Even our fellow-travellers were distorted and 
magnified, now lengthwise, now sidewise, so 
that those above us were powerful-liniljed 
giants, striding up the hill, while those behind 
us were flattened and broadened, and seemed 
straddling along as grotesquely as spiders. 
When we drew near and looked at each other 
we Avere inclined to laugh, but there was some- 
tliing in the pale-blue, ghastly coloi' of the faces 
that made us stop, half-frightened. At twelve 
o'clock it was so dark that we could hardly fol- 
low the trail; then we saw a fire gleaming like 
a will-o'-the-wisp somewhere above us, and clam- 
bering up the steep rock which stuck out of the 
snow and overhung the trail, we saw a couple of 
figures crouching over a tiny blaze of twigs and 
smoking roots. It was a native and his " klutch- 
man " or squaw ; he turned out to be deaf-and- 
duml), but made signs to us, — as we squatted 
ourselves around the fire, — that the night was 
dark, the trail dangerous, and that it would be 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 55 

better to wait till it grew a little lighter. So we 
kept ourselves warm for a half-hour or more by 
our exertions in tearing up roots for a fire : the 
fire itself being nothing more than a smoky, flary 
pile of wet fagots, hardly enough to warm our 
numbed lingers by. Then a dim figure came 
toiling up to us. It was one of our packers, and 
he explained in broken, profane, and obscene 
English, of which he was very proud, (the foun- 
dation of his knowledge had been laid in the mis- 
sion, and the trimmings, which were profuse and 
with the same idea many times repeated, like an 
art pattern, had been picked up from straggling 
whites) that the trail was good now. So we 
very gladly took up our march again. 

Two of us soon got ahead of the guide and all 
the rest of our party, following the beaten track 
in the snow ; after a while the ascent became very 
steep, as the last sheer declivity of the Pass was 
reached, and we began to sus})ect that we had 
strayed from the right path, for although here 
was a track, we could find no footprints on it, 
but only grooves as if from things which hatl slid 
down. Yet we decided not to go back, for we did 
not know how far we had strayed from the path. 



50 THROUGH THE YUKON CWLD DIGGINGS. 

and the climbing was not so easy that we were 
anxious to do it twice. So we kept on upward, 
and the ascent soon became so steep that we 
were obliged to stop and kick footholds in the 
crust at every step. 

It was twilight again, but still foggy, and we 
could see neither up nor down, only what appeared 
to be a vast chasm beneath us, wherein great in- 
distinct shapes were slowly shifting — an impres- 
sion infinitely more grand and appalling than the 
reality. At any rate, it made us very careful in 
every step, for we had no mind that a misplaced 
foot should send us sliding down the grooves we 
were following. At last we gained the top, 
found here again the trail we had lost, and 
waited for the rest. Around us, sticking out of 
the snow% were rocks, which appeared distorted 
and moving. It was the mists which moved past 
them, giving a deceptive effect. My companion 
suddenly exclaimed, " There's a bear ! " On 
looking, my imagination gave the shape the same 
semblance, but on going towards it, it resolved 
itself very reluctantly into a rock, as if ashamed 
of its failure to " bluflf." Most grown-up people, 
as well as children, I fancy, are more or less 



OJ'ER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 57 

afraid of the dark — where the uncertain evidence 
of the eyes can be shaped by the imagination 
into unnatural things. Goethe must once have 
felt something like what Faust expressed when 
he stood at night in one of the rugged Hartz 
districts : 

"Seh' die Baiime liinter Baiime, 
Wie sie schuell voriiber riicken, 
Uiul die Klippen, die sich biickeu, 
Und die langen Felsennasen, 
"Wie sie schnarchen, wie sie blasen." 

Presently the rest of the })arty came up from 
quite a different direction and with them a whole 
troo]) of packers. The main trail, from which 
we had straj'ed, was much longer, but not so 
steep ; while the one w^e had followed was simply 
the mark of the articles wliich the packers were 
accustomed to send down from the summit to 
save carrying, while they themselves took the 
more circuitous route. 

On the interior side of the summit is a small 
lake with steep sides, which the miners have 
named Crater Lake, fancying from the shape 
that it had Ijeen formed by volcanic action ; it 
has no such origin however, but occupies what is 



58 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

known as a glacial cirque or amphitheatre — a 
deep hollow carved out of the dioritic mountain 
mass l)v the powerful wearing action of a valley 
glacier. This lake ^vas still frozen and we 
crossed on the ice, then followed down the valley 
of the stream which flowed from it and led 
into another small lake. There are several of 
these small bodies of water and connecting 
streams before one reaches Lake Lindeman, 
which is several miles long, and is the uppermost 
water of the Yukon which is navigable for boats. 
Our path was devious, following the packers, but 
always along this valley. We crossed and re- 
crossed the streams over frail and reverberant 
arches, half ice, half snow, which, already broken 
away in places, showed foaming torrents be- 
neath. As we descended in elevation, the ice on 
the little lakes became more and more rotten and 
the snow changed to slush, through which we 
waded knee deep for miles, sometimes putting a 
foot through the ice into the water beneath. 

AVe were all very tired by this time and were 
separated from one another by long distances, 
each silent, and travelling on his nerve. The 
Indian packers, too, in spite of their long expe- 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 59 

rience, were tired and out of temper ; but the 
most pitiful sight of all was to see the women, 
especially the old ones, bending under crushing- 
loads, dragging themselves by sheer effort at 
every step, groaning and stopping occasionally, 
but again driven forward by the men to whom 
they belonged. One could not interfere ; it was 
a family matter ; and as among white people, the 
woman would have resented the interference as 
much as the man. 

Finally we came to a lake where the water 
was almost entirely open and were obliged to 
skirt along its rocky shores to where we found a 
brawling and rocky stream entering it, cutting 
us off. After a moment of vain glancing up and 
down in search of a ford, we took to the water 
bravely, floundering among the boulders on the 
stream's bottom, and supporting ourselves some- 
what with sticks. Afterwards we found a trail 
which led away from the lake high over the rocky 
hillside, where the rocks had been smoothed and 
laid bare by ancient glaciers, now vanished. 
Here we found the remnants of a camp, left 
by some one who had recently gone before us ; 
we inspected the corned beef cans lying about 



(iO Til ROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

rather hungrily, thinking that something might 
have been left over. Our only lunch since 
leaving Sheep Camp had been a snuiU piece of 
chocolate and a biscuit. The biscuit ])ossessed 
certain almost miraculous qualities, to which I as- 
cribe our success in completing the trip and in ar- 
rivino: first amono- the travellers at Lake Linde- 
num. I myself was the concocter of this biscuit, 
but it was done in a moment of inspiration, and 
since I have forgotten certain mystic details, it 
probably could never be gotten together again. 
It was the first and last time that I have made 
biscuit in my life, and I did it sim[)ly for the 
purpose of instruction to the others, who were 
shockingly ignorant of such practical matters. 

We had brought a reflector with us for baking, 
— a metal arrangement which is set up in front 
of a camp-fire, and, from polished metallic sur- 
faces, reflects the heat up and down, on to a pan 
of biscuit or bread, wdiich is slid into the middle. 
These utensils as used in the Lake Superior 
region, that home of good wood-craft, are made 
of sheet iron, tinned ; l)ut thinking to get a 
lighter article, I had one constructed out of 
aluminum. This first and last trial with our 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 61 

alumimnn reflector at Sheep Camp showed us 
that one of the peculiar properties of this metal 
is that it reflects heat but very little, but trans- 
mits it, almost as readily as glass does light. So 
when I had arrived at the first stage of my 
demonstration and had the reflector braced up 
in front of the fire, I found that the dough re- 
mained obstinately dough, while the heat passed 
through the reflector and radiated itself around 
about Sheep Camp, Still I persisted, and after 
several hours of stewing in front of the fire, most 
of the Avater was evaporated from the dough, 
leaving a compact rubbery grey biscuit, as I 
termed it. I offered it for lunch and I ate one 
myself ; no one else did, but I was rewarded by 
feeling a fullness all through the tramp, while 
the others were empty and famished. I also was 
sure that it gave me enormous strength and en- 
durance ; while some of the rest were unkind 
enough to suggest that the same high courage 
Avhich led me up to the biscuit's mouth, figura- 
tively speaking, kept me plugging away on the 
Lake Lindeman trail. 

AYe reached Lake Lindeman at about nine 
o'clock in the morning, and found Pete and 



62 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

Cooper already there. It Avas raining drearily 
and they had made themselves a shelter of poles 
and boughs under which they Avere lying con- 
tentedW enough, waiting until the packers should 
bring the tents. In a very short time after we 
had arrived all the natives were at hand, and set- 
ting down their packs demanded money. They 
could not be induced to accept bills, because they 
could not tell the denomination of them, and 
would as soon take a soap advertisement as a 
hundred-dollar note ; they dislike gold, because 
they get so small a quantity of it in comparison 
with silver. 

Like the Indians of the United States, the 
Alaskans formerly used wampum largely as a 
medium of exchange — small, straight, horn- 
shaped, rather rare shells, which were strung on 
thongs — but when the trading companies began 
shipping porcelain wampum into the country the 
natives soon learned the trick and stopped the 
use of it. I have in my possession specimens of 
this porcelain wampum, which I got from the 
agent of one of the large trading companies on 
the Yukon. Silver is now the favorite currenc}'^, 
whether or not on the Ijasis of sound political 



OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS. 



63 



cconoiny ; and each particular section has often 
a preference for some s|)ecial coin, such as a 
quarter, (" two bits," as it is called in the lan- 
guage of the west coast) a half-dollar or a dollar. 




Alaskan 1m>ians and House. 



Where the natives have had to deal only with 
quarters, you cannot buy anything for half-dol- 
lars, exce})t for nearly double the pi'ice you 



64 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

would pay in quarters; wbilo dimes, however large 
the quantity, would probably be refused entirely. 
The Chilkoots, however, on account of their 
residence on the coast and consequent contact 
with the whites, had become more liberal in 
their views as regarded denomination of silver, 
but drew the line at bimetalism, and had no 
faith whatsoever in the United States as the ful- 
filler of promises to redeem greenbacks in silver 
coin. So there was some trouble in paying them 
satisfactorily ; and after they were paid they 
came back, begging for a little flour, a little tea, 
etc., and keeping up the process with unwearied 
ardor till the supply was definitely shut otf. 
The toughness of these people is well shown by 
the fact that when they had rested an hour and 
had cooked themselves a little food and drunk a 
little tea, they departed over the trail again for 
Sheep Camp, although they had made the same 
journey as the white men, who were all ex- 
hausted, and had, in addition, carried loads of as 
high as 1()0 pounds over the whole of the 
rough trail of thirteen miles. When affairs were 
settled we pitched our tents, rolled into our 
blankets, and for the next twenty hours slept. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 

UPON" reaching Lake Lindeman, we found a 
number of other parties encamped, — men 
who had come over the trail before us, and had 
been delavins' a short time, for different reasons. 
From one of these parties Pete had been lucky 
enough to buy a boat already built, so that we 
did not have to wait and build one ourselves — a 
job that would have consumed a couple of weeks. 
The boat was after the dory pattern, but sharp at 
both ends, made of spruce, lap-streaked and un- 
painted, with the seams calked and pitched ; 
about eighteen feet long, and uncovered. Dur- 
ing the trip later we decided that it ought to be 
christened, and so we mixed some soot and 
bacon-grease for paint, applied it hot to the 
raw, porous wood, and inscribed in shaky letters 
the words " Sl-ookum Pete^'' as a com})liment to 
our {)ilot. Sl'ookum is a Chinook word sig- 
nifying strength, courage, and other excellent 

65 



66 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

qualities necessary for a native, a frontiersman, 
or any other dweller in the wilderness — qualities 
which were conspicuous in Pete. Fete was over- 
come with shame on reading the legend, how- 
ever, and straightway erased his name, so that 
she was simply the Skookum. And skookum 
she proved herself, in the two thousand miles we 
afterwards travelled, even though she sprung 
a leak occasionally or became obstinate when be- 
ing urged up over a rapid. 

It may be observed that the Chinook, to which 
this word belongs, is not a language, but a 
jargon, composed of words from many native 
American and also from many European 
tongues. It sprung up as a sort of universal 
language, which was used by the traders of the 
Hudson Bay Company in their intercourse with 
the natives, and is consequently widely known, 
but is poor in vocabulary and expression. 

There were several boats ready to start, craft 
of all models and grades of workmanship, vari- 
ously illustrating the efforts of the cowboy, the 
clerk, or the lawyer, at ship-carpentry. Several 
of us got off together in the morning, our boat 
carrying four, and the English traveller's boat 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FOliTV MILE. 67 

the same number, for he had taken into his i)arty 
the priest Avhom we had met on the Scrambler. 

This gentleman, with a number of miners and 
a newspaper reporter, had been unlucky enough 
to fall into the trap of a certain transportation 
company, w^hich had a very prettily furnished 
office in Seattle. This office was the big end of 
the company. As one went north towards the 
region where the company was supposed to be 
doing its transportation, it shrunk till nothing- 
was left but a swindle. They promised for a 
certain sum of money to transport supplies and 
outfits over the Pass, and to have the entire ex- 
pedition in charge of an experienced man, who 
would relieve one of all worry and bother ; and 
after transportation across the Pass, to put their 
passengers on the company's steamers, which 
would carry them to the gold fields. Even at 
Juneau the " experienced man " who was to take 
the party through, and who was a high officer of 
the company, kept up the ridiculous pretences 
and succeeded in obtaining a number of pas- 
sengers for the trip. AVhen these men learned 
later, however, that the guide had never yet 
been further than Juneau ; that he had no means 



(is THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

of transj)ortino' freight over the Pass ; that the 
steamers existed only in fancy ; and finally, 
when opportunity to hire help offered, that the 
leader had no funds, so that they were obliged 
to do all the work themselves, in order to move 
along : when they learned all this they were 
naturally a disgusted set of men, but having 
now given away their money, most of them de- 
cided to stick together till the diggings were 
reached. The priest, however, who was in a 
hurry, became nervous when he saw different 
parties leaving the rapid and elegant transporta- 
tion company in the rear, and effected a separa- 
tion. 

When we left Sheep Camp, the manager was 
trying to cajole his passengers into cari-ying their 
own packs to the summit, even going so far as to 
take little loads himself — "just for exercise," as 
he airily informed us. He was an Englishman, 
of aristocratic tendencies, with an awe-inspiring- 
acquaintance with titles. " You know Lord Dud- 
son Dudley, of course," he would begin, fixing 
one with his eye as if to hypnotize ; "his sister, 
you remember', made such a row by her flirtation 
with Sir Jekson Jekby. — Never heard of them ? — 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY" MILE. 69 

lluinph ! " And then with a h^ok which seemed 
to say " AVhat kind of a bhirsted Philistine is 
this ? " he woukl retreat to his own camp-tire. 

We sailed down Lake Lindeman with a fair 
brisk wind, using our tent-fly braced against a 
pole, for a sail. The distance is only four or five 
miles, so that the lower end of the lake was 
reached in an hour. A mountain sheep was 
sighted on the hillside above us, soon after start- 
inff, and a lono--rano-e shot with the rifle was tried 
at it, but the animal bounded away. 

At the lower end of this first of the Yukon 
navigable lakes there is a stream, full of little 
falls and rapids, which connects with Lake Ben- 
nett, a much larger body of water. According to 
Pete, the boat could not run these rapids, so we 
began the task of " lining " her down. With a 
long pole shod with iron, especially brought along 
for such work, Pete stood in the bow or stern, as 
the emergency called for, planting the pole on 
the rocks which stuck out of the water and so 
shoving and steering the boat through an open 
narrow channel, while we three held a long line 
and scrambled along the bank or waded in the 
shallow water. We had put on long rubber boots 



70 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

roaching' to the lii[) and sti'a[)pe(l to our belts, so at 
first (jiir wading was not uncomfortable. On ac- 
count of the roar of the water we could not hear 
Pete's orders, but could see his signals to •■' haul 
in," or "let her go ahead." On one difficult little 
place he manoeuvered quite a while, getting stuck 
on a rock, signalling us to pull back, and then try- 
ing again. Finally he struck the right channel, 
and motioned energetically to us to go ahead. 
We spurted forward, waddling clumsily, and the 
foremost man stepped suddenly into a groove 
where the water was above his waist. ITgh ! It 
was icy, but he floundered through, half swim- 
ming, half ^vading, dragging his great water- filled 
boots behind him like iron weights ; and the rest 
followed. We felt quite triumphant and heroic 
when we emerged, deeming this something of a 
trial : we did not know that the time would come 
when it would be the ordinary thing all day long, 
and would become so monotonous that all feelings 
of novelty would be lost in a general neutral tint 
of bad temper and rheumatism. 

On reaching shallow water the \veight of the 
water-filh'd i'ul)ber l)oots \vas so great that we 
could no longer navigate among the sli})})ery 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 71 

rocks, SO we took turns going ashore and empty- 
ing them. There was a smooth round rock with 
steep sides, glaring in the sun ; on this we stretched 
ourselves head down, so that the water ran out 
of our boots and trickled in cold little streams 
down our backs ; then we returned to our 
work. 

Before undertaking to line the Skookum through 
the rapids we had taken out a large part of the 
load and put it on shore, in order to lighten the 
boat, and also to save our " grub " in case our 
boat was capsized. The next task was to carry 
this over the half-mile portage. Packing is about 
the hardest and most disliked work that a pioneer 
has to do, and yet every one that travels liard 
and ^vell in Alaska and similar rough countries 
must do it ad nauseam. In such remote and un- 
finished parts of the world transportation comes 
back to the original and simple phase, — carrying- 
on one's back. The railroad and the steamboat 
are for civilization, the wheeled vehicle for the 
inhabited land where there are roads, the camel 
for the desert, the horse for the plains and where 
trails have been cut, l)ut for a large part of 
Alaska Nature's only highways are the rivers, 



72 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

and when the water will not cany the burdens 
the explorer must. 

In a ])r()perly-constructed pack-sack, the weight 
is carried partly by the shoulders but mainly by 
the neck, the back being bent and the neck 
stretched forward till the load rests upon the back 
and is kept from slipping by the head strap, which 
is nearly in line with the rigid neck. An aston- 
ishing amount can be carried in this way with 
practice, — for half a mile or so, very nearly one's 
own Aveight. Getting uj) and down with such a 
load is a work of art, which s})oils the temper and 
wrenches the muscles of the beginner. Having 
got into the strap he finds himself pinned to the 
ground in spite of his backbone-breaking efforts 
to rise, so he must learn to so sit down in the be- 
ginning that he can tilt the load forward on his 
back, get on his hands and knees and then elevate 
himself to the necessary standing-stooping pos- 
ture ; or he must lie down flat and roll over on 
his face, getting his load fairly between his 
shoulders, and then work himself up to his hands 
and knees as before. Sometimes, if the load is 
heavy, the help of another must be had to get 
an upright position, and then the packer goes 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 73 

trudging oil', red and sweating and with bulging- 
veins. 

By the time we had carried our outfits over 
the portage, we were ready for supper, and after 
that for a sleep. We pitched no tent — w^e were 
too tired, and the blue sky and the still shining 
sun looked very friendly — so we rolled in our 
blankets and slumbered. 

There were other craft than ours at Lake Ben- 
nett, — belonging to parties who had come over 
before us, and who had not yet started. The 
most astonishing thing was a small portable 
sawmill, which had been pulled across the Chil- 
koot Bass in the winter, over the snow and ice ; 
and the limited means of communication in this 
country are well shown by the fact that no news 
of any such mill was to be had anywhere along 
the route. Men went over the Chilkoot Bass 
into the interior, but rarely any came back that 
way. 

Among the gold hunters was a solitary Dutch- 
man, a pathetic, desperate, mild-mannered sort 
of an adventurer, who had built himself a boat 
like a woodbox in model and construction, 
square, lop-sided, and leaky ; but he started 



74 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

bravely down Lake Bennett, paddling, ^vith a 
rag of a square-sail braced against a pole. We 
pitied, admired, and laughed at him, but many 
Avere the doubts expressed as to Avhether he 
could reach the diggings in his cockle-shell. 
Then there was a large scow, also frailly built ; 
this contained several tons of outfit, and a party 
of seven or eight men and one woman. They 
were the parasites of the mining camp, all ready, 
with smuggled whisky and faro games — Wein, 
Weib, und Gesang — to relieve the miners of 
some of their gold-dust : and I am told that the 
manager of the expedition brought out $100,000 
two years later. 

AVe all got away, one after the other. There 
was a stiff fair wind blowing down the lake, 
which soon increased to a gale, and the waves 
became very rough. The lake is narrow and 
fjord-like, walled in by high mountains which 
often rise directly from the shores. Lakes like 
this all through Alaska are naturally subject 
to frequent and violent gales, since the deep 
mountain valleys form a kind of chimney, up 
and down which the currents of air rush to the 
frosty snowy mountains from the warmer low- 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY 311 LE. 75 

lands, or in the o})posite direction. The further 
we went the harder the wind blew, and the 
rougher became the water, so that when about 
half-way down we made a landing to escape a 
heav}^ squall. After dinner, it seemed from our 
snug little cove that the wind had abated, and 
we put out again. On getting well away from 
the sheltering shore we found it rougher than 
ever ; but while we were at dinner we had seen 
the scow go past, its square bow nearly buried 
in foaming water, and had seen it apparently 
run ashore on the opposite side of the lake, some 
miles further down. Once out, therefore, we 
steered for the place where the scow had been 
beached, for the purpose of giving aid if any 
were necessary. On the run over we shipped 
water repeatedly over both bow and stern, and 
sometimes were in imminent danger of swamp- 
ing, but b}^ skillful managing we gained the 
shelter of a little nook about half a mile from 
the open beach where the scow was lying, and 
landed. We then walked along the shore to the 
scow, and found its passengers all right, they 
having beached voluntarily, on account of the 
roughness of the water. 



76 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

However, we had had enough navigation for 
one (lay, so we did not venture out again. Pres- 
ently another little boat came scudding down 
the lake through the white, frothy water, and 
shot in alongside the Skookum. It w^as a party 
of miners — the young Irishman whom I had 
overtaken on the trail to Sheep Camp, and his 
three " pardners." 

It was not an ideal spot where we all camped, 
being simply a steep rocky slope at the foot of 
cliffs. When the time came to sleep we had 
difficulty in finding places smooth enough to lie 
down comfortably, but finally all were scattered 
around here and there in various places of con- 
cealment among the rocks. I had cleared a 
space close under a big boulder, of exactly my 
length and breadth (which does not imply any 
great labor), and with my head muffled in the 
blankets, was beginning to doze, when I heard 
stealthy footsteps creeping toward me. As I 
lay, these sounds were muffled and magnified in 
the marvellous quiet of the Alaskan night (al- 
though the sun was still shining), so that I could 
not judge of the size and the distance of the ani- 
mal. Soon it got quite close to me, and I could 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 11 

iiear it scratching at something ; then it seemed 
to be investigating my matches, knife and com- 
pass. Finally, Avide-awake, and somewhat star- 
tled, I sat up suddenly and threw my blanket 
from my face, and looked for the marauding 
animal. I found him — in the shape of a saucy 
little grey mouse, that stared at me in amaze- 
ment for a moment, and then scampered into his 
hole under the boulder. As I had no desire to 
have the impudent little fellow lunching on me 
while I slept, I plugged the hole with stones 
before I lay down again. Some of the same 
animals came to visit Schrader in his bed- 
chamber, and nibbled his ears so that they were 
sore for some time.* 

As the gale continued all the next day with- 
out abatement, we profited by the enforced delay 
to climb the high mountain which rose precipi- 
tously above us. And apropos of this climb, it is 
remarkable what difference one finds in the ap- 
pearance of a bit of country wdien simply sur- 
veyed from a single point and when actually 
travelled over. Especially is this true in moun- 

* A portion of this description is similar to that used bv 
the writer in an article published in "Outing." 



78 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

tains. Broad slopes which appear to be perfectly 
easy to traverse are in reality cut up by narrow 
and deep canyons, almost impossible to cross ; 
what seeins to be a trifling bench of rock, half a 
mile up the mountain, grows into a perpendicular 
cliff a hundred feet high before one reaches it ; 
and pretty grey streaks become gulches filled 
with great angular rock fragments, so loosely 
laid one over the otlier that at each careful step 
one is in fear of starting a mighty avalanche, 
and of being buried under rock enough to build 
a city. 

Owing to difficulties like these it was near 
supper-time when we gained the top of the main 
mountain range. As far as the eye could see in 
all tlirections, there rose a wilderness of barren 
peaks, covered with snow ; while in one direction 
lay a desolate, lifeless table-land, shut in by high 
mountains. Below and near us lay gulches and 
canyons of magnificent depth, and the blue 
waters of one of the arms of Lake Bennett ap- 
peared, just lately free from ice. Above, rose a 
still higher peak, steep, difficult of access, and 
covered witli snow; this the lateness of the hour 
prevented us from attempting to climb. 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY 3IILE. 79 

Next day and the next the \vind was as high 
as ever ; but the waiting finally became too 
tedious, and we started out, the four miners hav- 
ing preceded us by a half an hour. Once out of 
the shelter of the projecting point, we found the 
gale very strong and the chop disagreeable. We 
squared off and ran before the wind for the op- 
posite side of the lake, driving ahead at a good 
rate under our little rag of a sail. Although the 
boat was balanced as evenly as possible, every 
minute or two we would take in water, some- 
times over the bow, sometimes in the stern, 
sometimes amidships. I have in my mind a very 
vivid picture of that scene : Wiborg in the stern, 
steering intently and carefully ; Goodrich and 
Schrader forward, sheets in hand, attending to 
the sail ; and myself stretched flat on my face, in 
order not to make the boat top-heavy, and bail- 
ing out the water with a frying-pan. On near- 
ing the lower shore we noticed that the boat 
containing the miners had run into the breakers, 
and presently one of the men came running 
along the beach, signaling to us. Fearing that 
they were in trouble, we made shift to land, al- 
though it was no easy matter on this exposed 



80 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

shore ; and we then learned that they had kejit 
too near tlie beach, had drifted into the breakers 
and had been swamped, but had all safely 
landed. Three of our party went to give assist- 
ance in hauling their boat out of the Avater, 
while I remained behind to fry the bacon for 
dinner. 

After dinner we concluded to wait again be- 
fore attempting the next stage ; so we picked 
out soft places in the sand and slumbered. 
When we awoke we found the lake perfectly 
smooth and calm, and lost no time in getting 
under way. On this day we depended for our 
motive power solely on our oars, and we found 
the results so satisfactory that we kept up the 
practice hundreds of miles. 

Below Lake Bennett came Tagish Lake, beauti- 
ful and calm. Its largest fjord-like arm is fa- 
mous for its heavy gales, whence it has been 
given the name of " Windy Arm " ; but as we 
passed it we could hardly distinguish the line of 
division between the mountains in the air and 
those reflected in the lake, so completel}^ at rest 
was the water. At the lower part, where we 
camped, we found the first inhabitants since 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 81 

leaving- the coast, natives belonging to the Tag- 
ish tribe. They are a handful of wretched, half- 
starved creatures, who scatter in the summer 
season for hunting and fishing, but always return 
to this place, where they have constructed rude 
wooden habitations for winter use. We bought 
here a large pike, which formed an agreeable 
change from bacons, beans, and slapjacks. 

"While camped at this place we met an old man 
and his tw^o sons, who had brought horses into 
the country some months before, with some 
crazy idea of taking up land for farming pur- 
poses, or of getting gold. The old man had 
been taken sick, and all three were now on their 
way out, having abandoned their horses on the 
Hootalinqua. All three were thin and worn, 
and agreed if they ever got out of the country 
they would not come back. The old man begged 
for a little tea, which we supplied him, together 
with a few other things ; he insisted on our tak- 
ing pay for them, with the pathetic pride of a 
man broken in health and fortune, but we under- 
stood the pioneer custom well enough to know 
we should give no offence by refusing. 

After passing out of this lake we entered an- 



82 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

other, a])propriately called 1)}^ the miners " Mud 
Lake"; it is very shallow, with muddy bottom 
and shores. Here we found camping disagree- 
able, for on account of the shallowness we could 
not bring our heavily laden boat quite to the 
shore, but were obliged to wade knee deep in 
soft mud for a rod or two before finding even 
moderately solid ground. 

About this time we experienced the first sharp 
taste of the terrible Alaskan mosquito — or it 
might be more correct to reverse the statement, 
and say that the mosquitoes had their first taste 
of us. At the lower end of Tagish Lake they sud- 
tlenlv attacked us in swarms, and remained with 
us steadily until near the time of our departure 
from the Territory. We had heard several times 
of the various hardships to be encountered in 
Alaska, but, as is often the case, we found that 
these accounts had left a rather unduly magnified 
image of the difficulties in our imaginations, as 
compared with our actual experiences. In this 
generalization the mosquito must be excepted. I 
do not think that any description or adjective 
can exaggerate the discomfort and even torture 
produced by these pests, at their worst, for they 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 83 

stand peerless among their kind, so far as niv ex- 
perience goes, and that of othei-s with whom I 
have spoken, for wickedness unalloyed. 

We were driven nearly fi'antic when they at- 
tacked us and quickly donned veils of netting, 
fastened around the hat and buttoned into the 
shirt, and gauntleted cavalry gloves ; but still the 
heat of rowing and the warmth of the sun made 
the stings smart till we could hardly bear it. 
From time to time I glanced at Pete, who sat in 
the stern, steering with a paddle, his face and 
hands unprotected, his hat pushed back, trolling 
his favorite song. 

" And none was left to tell me, Tom, 
And few was left to know 
Who played upon the village green. 
Just twenty year ago! " 

I admired him beyond ex})ression. "How long," 
thought I, " does one have to stay in Alaska before 
one gets so indifferent to mosquitoes as this ? Or 
is it simply the })hlegm of the Norwegian — mag- 
nificent in mosquito time ? " Just then Pete 
broke in his song and began a refrain of curses 
in Norwegian and English and some other Ian- 



84 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

guages — all apropos of mosquitoes. He averred 
emphatically that never — no, never — had he seen 
mosquitoes quite so disagreeable. This lasted 
about five minutes; then he settled down to a 
calm again. I perceived that men's tempers may 
be something like geysers — some keep bubbling 
hot water continually, while others, like Pete's, 
keep quiet for a while and then explode violently. 

It seems strange to many that a country like 
Alaska, sub-Arctic in climate, should be so bur- 
dened with a pest wliich we generally associate 
with hot weather and tropical swamps. But the 
long warm days of summer in these high lati- 
tudes seem to be extraordinarily favorable to all 
kinds of insect life — mosquitoes, gnats, and flies 
— which harbor in the moss and dense under- 
brush. Other countries similarly situated, such 
as the region between the Gulf of Bothnia and 
the Arctic Ocean — Northern Finland — which is 
north of the Arctic Circle, are also pestered 
with mosquitoes during the summer months. 

In Alaska the mosquitoes are so numerous that 
they occupy a large part of men's attention, and 
form the sul)ject for much conversation as long as 
they remain — and they are astonishing stayers, 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY 3IILE. 85 

appearing before the snow is gone and not leav- 
ing until the nights grow comparatively long and 
frosty. They flourish as well in cool weather 
as in hot, thawing cheerfully out after a heavy 
frost and getting to work as if to make up for 
lost time. We were able to distinguish at least 
three species : a large one like those met at the 
seaside resorts, which buzzes and buzzes and 
buzzes ; then a smaller one that buzzes a little 
but also bites ferociously ; and, worst of all, 
little striped fellows who go about in great 
crowds. These last never stop to buzz, but come 
straight for the intruder on a bee-line, stinging 
him almost before they reach him— and their 
sting is particularly irritating. Many stories 
have been told of the mosquitoes in Alaska ; one 
traveller tells how bears are sometimes killed 
by these pests, though this story is probably an 
exag-fi-eration. But men who are travelling 

DO 

must have veils and gloves as protection against 
them. Even the natives wrap their heads in 
skins or cloth, and are overjoyed at any little 
piece of mosquito-netting they can get hold of. 
With the best protection, however, one cannot 
help being tormented and worn out. 



86 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

We always slept witli gloves and veils on, and 
with our heads wrapped as tightly as })ossible, 
yet the insects w'ould crawl through the crevices 
of the blankets and sting through the clothes, or 
where the veil pressed against the face, — not one, 
but hundreds — so that one slept but fitfully and 
woke to find his face bloody and smarting, and 
would at once make for the cold river water, 
bathing hands and face to relieve the pain, and 
dreading to keep his veil up long enough to gobble 
his breakfast. 

The climate of this interior country is dry, and 
the rains infrequent. We worked so long during 
the day that we seldom took the trouble to pitch 
a tent at night, but lay down with our backs 
against some convenient log, so that the mos- 
quitoes had a good chance at us. Even in the 
day, when protected by veil and gloves, I have 
been so irritated by them as to run until l)rcath- 
less to relieve my excitement, and I can readily 
believe, as has been told, that a man lost in the 
underbrush without protection, would very soon 
lose his reason and his life. As soon as the coun- 
try is cleared up or burned over, the scourge be- 
comes much less, so that in the mining camps the 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 87 

annoyance is comparatively slight. Mosquitoes 
are popularly supposed to seek and feed upon 
men, while the reverse is true. They avoid men, 
swarming most in thick underbrush and swamps 
which are difficult of access, and disappearing 
almost entirely as soon as the axe and the plow 
and other implements in the hands of man in- 
vade their solitudes. 

Out of Mud Lake we floated into the river 
again, and slipped easily down between the sand- 
banks. Ducks and geese were plentiful along 
here, and Ave practised incessantly on them with 
the rifle, without, however, doing any notice- 
able execution. On the second day we knew we 
must be near the famous canyon of the Lewes ; 
and one of our party was put on watch, in 
order that we might know its whereabouts be- 
fore the swift current sliould sweep us into it, 
all heavily laden as we were. The rest of us 
rowed and steered, and admired the beauti- 
ful tints of the hills, which now receded frpm 
the river, now came close to it. Presently we 
heard a gentle snore from the lookout who was 
comfortably settled among the flour sacks in the 
bow; this proved to us that our confidence had 



88 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

been misplaced, and all liands became immedi- 
ately alert. Soon after, we noticed a bit of red 
flannel fluttering from a tree projecting over tlie 
bank, doubtless a part of some traveller's shirt 
sacrificed in the cause of humanity ; and by tlie 
time we had pulled in to the shore we could see 
the waters of the river go swirling and roaring 
into a sudden narrow canyon with high, per- 
pendicular walls. 

We found the parties of miners already landed, 
and presently, as we waited on the bank and 
reconnoitered, Danlon's party came up, and not 
long after, the barge, so that we were about 
twenty in all.' Wiborg, and Danlon's guide. 
Cooper, were the only ones that had had ex- 
perience in this matter, so all depended on their 
judgment, and waited to see the results of their 
efforts before risking anything themselves. 

In former years all travellers made a jjortage 
around this very difficult place, hauling their 
boats over the hill with a rude sort of a wind- 
lass ; but a man having been accidentally sucked 
into the canyon came out of the other end all 
right, which emboldened others. In this case 
Wiborg and Cooper decided that the canyon 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 89 

could be run, although the water was very high 
and turbulent ; and they thought best to run 
the boats through themselves. Our own boat 
was selected to be experimented with ; most of 
the articles that were easily damageable by water 
were taken out, leaving perhaps about eight 
hundred pounds. I went as passenger sitting in 
the bow, while the two old frontiersmen managed 
paddles and oars. Rowing out from the shore 
we were immediately sucked into the gorge, and 
went dashing through at a rate which I thought 
could not be less than twenty miles an hour. So 
great is the body of water confined between 
these perpendicular walls, and so swift is the 
stream, that its surface becomes convex, being 
considerably higher in the centre of the channel 
than on the sides. Waves rushing in every di- 
rection are also generated, forming a puzzling 
chop. Two or three of these waves presently 
boarded us, so that I was thoroughly wet, and 
then came a broad glare of sunlight as we 
emerged from the first half of the canyon into a 
sort of cauldron which lies about in its centre. 

Here we were twisted about by eddying 
currents for a few seconds, and then precipitated 



90 TlIllOUaH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

half sidewise into the canyon again. The latter 
half turned out to be the rougher part, and our 
bow dipped repeatedly into the waves, till I 
found myself sitting in water, and the bow, 
where most of the w^ater remained, saoged 

^ Do 

alarmingly. It seemed as if another ducking 
would sink us. This fortunately we did not get, 
but steered safely through the final swirl to 
smooth water. During all this ti'ip I had not 
looked up once, although as we shot by we heard 
faintly a cheer from the rocks above, where our 
companions were. 

Next day, after a night made almost unbear- 
able b}^ mosquitoes, we rose to face the difficul- 
ties of White Horse llapicls, which lie below the 
canyon proper, and are still more formidable. 
Here the river contracts again, and is confined 
between perpendicular walls of basalt. The 
channel is full of projecting rocks, so that the 
whole surface is broken, and there are many 
strong conflicting currents and eddies. At the 
end of these rapids, which extend for a quarter 
of a mile or so, is a narrow gorge in the rocks, 
through which the whole volume of water is 
forced. This is said to be only twenty or thirty 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY 311 LE. 'Jl 

feet "wide, although at the time of our passing 
the water was sufficiently high to flow over the 
top of the enclosing walls, thus concealing the 
actual width of the chute. Through this the 
water plunges at a tremendous velocity— proba- 
bly tiiirty miles an hour — forming roaring, foam- 
ing, tossing, lashing waves which somehow make 
the name White Horse seem appropriate. 

Above the beginning of the rapid we unloaded 
our boat, and carefully lowered it down by 
ropes, keeping it close to the shore, and out of 
the resistless main current. After having safely 
landed it, with considerable trouble, below the 
chute, we carried our outfit (about twelve hun- 
dred pounds) to the same point. Danlon's boat 
and that belonging to the miners were safely 
gotten through in the same way, all hands help- 
ing in turn. 

When it came to the scow, it was the general 
opinion that it would be impossible to lower it 
safely, for its square shape gave the current such 
a grip that it seemed as if no available strength 
of rope or man could hold out against it. As 
carrying the boat was out of the question, the 
only alternative was to boldly run it through the 



92 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

rapids, in the middle of the channel ; and this 
naturally hazardous undertaking was rendered 
more difficult by the frail construction of the 
scow, which had been built of thin lumber by 
unskilled hands. The scow's crew did not care 
to make the venture themselves, but finally pre- 
vailed upon Wiborg and Cooper to make the 
trial. 

Reflecting that at any time I might be placed 
in similar difficulties, in this unknown countr}'^, 
and thrown upon my ow^n resources, I resolved 
to accompany them, for the sake of finding out 
how the thing was done ; but I was ruled out of 
active service by Wiborg, who, however, con- 
sented finally to my going along as passenger. 
Tw^o of the scow's own crew were drafted to act 
as oarsmen, and we pushed out, Cooper steering, 
and Wiborg in the bow, iron-shod pole in hand, 
fending off from threatening rocks ; and in a 
second we were dancing down the boiling rapids 
and tossing hither and thither like a cork. I sat 
facing the bow, opposite the oarsmen, who 
tugged frantically away, white as death ; behind 
me Cooper's paddle flashed and twisted rapidly, 
as we dodged by rocks projecting from the 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 93 

water, sometimes escaping only by a few inches, 
where a collision would have smashed us to 
chips. The rest of the party, waiting below the 
chute, said that sometimes they saw only the 
bottow of the scow, and sometimes looked down 
upon it as if from above. As we neared the end, 




Shooting the White Horse Rapids. 



Cooper's skillful paddle drove us straight for the 
centre, where the water formed an actual fall ; 
this central part was the most turbulent, but the 
safest, for on either side, a few feet away, there 
was danger of grazing the shallow underlying 



94 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

rocks. As we trembled on the brink, I looked 
up and saw our friends standing close by, look- 
ing much concerned. A moment later there was 
a dizzying plunge, a blinding shower of water, a 
sudden dashing, too swift for observation, past 
rock walls, and then Wiborg let out an exultant 
yell — we were safe. At that instant one of the 
oarsmen snapped his oar, an accident which 
would have been serious a moment before. On 
the shore below the rapids we found flour-sacks, 
valises, boxes and splintered boards, mementoes 
of poor fellows less lucky than ourselves. 

We camped at the mouth of the Tahkeena 
River that night, and arrived the next day at 
Lake Labarge, the last and longest of the series. 
When we reached it, at one o'clock, the water 
Avas calm and smooth ; and although it was 
nearly forty miles across, we decided to keep on 
without stopping till we reached the other side, 
for fear of strong winds such as had delayed us 
on Lake Bennett. Danlon's party concluded to 
do the same, and so we rowed steadily all night, 
after having rowed all day. 

About two o'clock in the morning a favorable 
wind sprung up suddenly, and increased to a 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 95 

gale. At this time we became separated from 
the other boats, which kept somewhat close to 
the shore, while we, with our tiny sail, stood 
straight across the lake for the outlet. As soon 
as we stopped rowing I could not help falling 
asleep, although much against my will, for our 
position was neither comfortable nor secure ; 
and thus I dozed and woke half a dozen times 
before landing. On reaching the shore we found 
difficulty in sleeping on account of the swarms of 
hungry mosquitoes, so we soon loaded up again. 
We had got caribou meat from some })eople 
whom we passed half-way down Lake Labarge ; 
and the next day we saw a moose on an island, 
but the current swept us by before we could get 
a shot at him. Large game, on the whole, how- 
ever, was very scarce along this route. The 
weather was warm and pleasant after leaving 
Lake Labarge, and there w^ere no serious obstruc- 
tions. The swift current bombarded the bottom 
of the boat with grains of sand, making a sound 
like a continual frying. " Look out ! " Pete 
would say. " The devil is frying his fat for us ! " 
We travelled easily sixty or eighty miles a day, 
floating with the current and rowing. 



9G THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

Danlon's party, which we had lost sight of on 
Lake Labarge, reached us a couple of days after- 
wards, having pulled night and day to catch 
up. They were grey and speckled with fatigue 
and told us of having decided to leave one 
boat (they came with only one of the two they 
had started in) at Lake Labarge, and also of 
leaving some of their provisions. They had un- 
fortunately forgotten to keep any sugar — could 
we lend them some ? We produced the sugar 
and smiled knowingly ; a few days later we ran 
across the solitary Dutchman, who had en- 
gineered his wood-box thus far, and he told us 
the whole story : how when the boats got near 
the shore one was swamped in shallow water, 
losing most of its cargo, and how the occupants 
had to stand in cold water the rest of the night, 
finally getting to shore and to rights again. The 
priest had been naming the camps after the let- 
ters of the Greek alphabet, and the night on 
Labarge should have been Camp Rho ; and this 
was appropriate as we rowed nearly all night. 

From here the journey was comparatively 
easy. The skies were always clear and blue, and 
the stream had by this time increased to a lordly 
\ 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 97 

river, growing larger by continual accessions of 
new tributaries. It is dotted with many small 
islands, which are covered with a dense growth 
of evergreen trees. On the side of the valley 
are often long smooth terraces, perfectly carved 
and smoothly grassed, so as to present an almost 
artificial aspect. From this sort of a country are 
sudden changes to a more bold and picturesque 
type, so at one time the river flows swiftly 
through high gates of purple rock rising steeply 
for hundreds of feet, and in a few moments 
more emerges into a wide low valley. The 
cliffs are sometimes carved into buttresses or 
pinnacles, which overlook the Avails, and appear 
to form part of a gigantic and impregnable 
castle, on the top of which the dead spruces 
stand out against the sky like spires and flag- 
staves. Usually on one side or the other of the 
river is low fertile land, where grows a profusion 
of shrubs and flowers. 

In the mellow twilight, which lasts for two or 
three hours in the middle of the night, one can 
see nearly as far and as distinctly as by day, but 
everything takes on an unreal air. This is some- 
thing like a beautiful sunset effect further south. 



98 



THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 



but is evenly distributed over all the landscape. 
At about ten o'clock the coloring becomes ex- 
quisite, when the half-light brings out the vio- 
lets, the purples, and various shades of 3'ellow 
and brown in the rocks, in contrast to the green 
of the vegetation. 




Talking it Over. 



We had some difficulty in finding suitable 
camping-places in this country. One night I re- 
member, we ran fifteen miles after our usual 
camping-hour, with cliffs on one side of the river 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 99 

and low thickets on the other. Three tmies we 
hmded on small islands, in a tangle of vines and 
roses ; and as many times we were driven off by 
the innumerable mosquitoes. At last we found 
a strip of shore about ten feet wide, between the 
water and the thickets, sloping at a considerable 
ano-le: and there we made shift to spend the 
night. 

There are two places below the White Horse 
Rapids where the channel is so narrowed or 
shallowed that rapids are formed. At the first 
of these, called the " Five Finger Rapids," the 
river is partially blocked by high islets, which 
cut up the stream in several portions, Although 
the currents in each of these " fingers " is rapid, 
and the water rough, yet we found no difficulty 
in running through without removing any part 
of the load, although one of the boats shijjped a 
little water. When we arrived at the second 
place, which is called the " Rink Rapids," and is 
not far below the Five Fingers, we were re- 
lieved to find that owing to the fullness of the 
river, the rough water, which in this case is 
caused by the shallowing of tlie stream, was 
smoothed down, and we went through, close to 






loo THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

the shore, with no more trouble than if we had 
been floating down a lake. 

During the whole trip the country through 
which we passed was singularly lonely and unin- 
habited. After leaving the few huts on Tagish 
Lake, which I have mentioned, we saw a few In- 
dians in a summer camp on Lake Labarge ; and 
this was all until we got to the junction of the 
Lewes and Pelly Rivers, over three hundred miles 
from Tagish Lake. At Pelly we found a log 
trading-post, with a single white man in charge, 
and a few Indians. There were also three miners, 
who had met with misfortune, and were discon- 
solate enough. They had started up Pelly River 
with a two 3^ears' outfit, intending to remain and 
prospect for that period, but at some rapid water 
their boat had been swamped and all their pro- 
visions lost. They had managed to burn off logs 
enough to build a raft, and in that way had 
floated down the river to the post, living in the 
meantime on some flour which they had been 
lucky enough to pick up after the wreck. 

Although there are very few people in the 
country, one is continually surprised at first by 
perceiving solitary white tents standing on some 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 101 

prominent point or cliff wliicli overlooks the river. 
At first this looks very cheerful, and we sent 
many a hearty hail across the river to such places ; 
but our calls Avere never answered, for these are 
not the habitations of the living but of the dead. 
Inside of each of these tents, which are ordinarily 
made of white cloth, though sometimes of woven 
matting, is a dead Indian, and near him is laid 
his rifle, snowshoes, ornaments and other per- 
sonal effects. I do not think the custom of leav- 
ing these articles at the grave implies any belief 
that they will be used by the dead man in another 
world, but simply signifies that he will have no 
more use for the things which were so dear to 
him in life — just as among ourselves, articles 
which have been used by dear friends are hence- 
forth laid aside and no longer used. These dwell- 
ings of the dead are always put in prominent po- 
sitions, commanding as broad and fair a view as 
can be obtained. At Pelly we saw several Indian 
graves that were surrounded by hewn palings, 
rudely and fantastically painted. 

When we reached the White River we found 
it nearly as broad as the Yukon. The waters of 
the two rivers are separated by a distinct line at 



l()-2 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

their confluence and for some distance further 
down, the Yukon water being- chirk and the other 
milky, whence the name — White River. All over 
this country is a thin deposit of white dust-like 
volcanic ash, covering the surface, but on White 
River this ash is very thick, and the river flow- 
ing through it carries away enough to give the 
waters continually a milky appearance. As we 
ap[)roached AVhite River we beheld what seemed 
a most extraordinary cloud hanoin"' over its val- 
ley. It was a solid compact mass of white, like 
some great ice-flower rising from the hills, re- 
minding one as one explored it through field- 
glasses, in its snowy vastness and unevenness, of 
some great glacier. The clouds were in rounded 
bunches and each bunch was crenulated. Below 
Avas a mass of smoke with a ruddy reflection as 
if from some great fire, and smaller snowy com- 
pact clouds came up at intervals, as if gulped out 
from some crater. This we thought might be the 
fabled volcano of the White River, but on get- 
ting nearer it seemed to be probably a forest-fire. 
Although there are no railway trains to set fires 
Avith their sparks, nowhere do fires start more 
easily than in Alaska, for the ground is generally 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 103 

covered deep with a peat-like dry moss, which ig- 
nites when one lights a fire above and smoulders 
so persistently that it can hardly be extinguished, 
creeping along under the roots of the living moss 
and breaking out into flame on opportunity. 

The Fourth of July was celebrated by shoot- 
ing at a mark ; and that night we had a true bless- 
ing, for we camped on a little bare sandspit on an 
island, where the wind was brisk and kept the 
mosquitoes away. These insects cannot stand 
against a breeze, but are whisked aAvay by it like 
the imps of darkness at the first breath of God's 
morning light, as we have read in fairy stories. 
The freedom was delicious, so Ave just stretched 
ourselves in the sand, and slept ten hours. We 
were awakened by a violent plunge in the water 
and stuck our heads out of the blankets in a 
hurry, thinking it was a moose; but it turned 
out to be only one of our party celebrating the 
day after the Fourth l)y a bath. 

At Sixty Mile we found an Indian trading-post, 
located on an island in the river, and kept by 
Jo La Dn, a lonely trader who a year afterwards 
became rich and famous from his participation in 
the Klondike rush. lie had no idea of this when 



104 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

we saw him, but shook hands with us shyly and 
silently, a man whom years had made more ac- 
customed to the Indian than to the white man. 

The name Sixty Mile is applied to a small river 
here, which is sixty miles from old Fort Keli- 
ance, an ancient trading post belonging to the 
Hudson Bay Company. The hardy and intrepid 
agents of the company were the first white men 
to explore the interior of Alaska. The lower 
Yukon in tlie vicinity of the delta was explored 
by the Russians in 1835 to 1838, and the river Avas 
called by the Eskimo name of Kwikpuk or 
Kwikpak, — the great river : in 1812-3 the Eussian 
Lieutenant Zagoskin explored as far as the 
Nowikakat. I>ut the up})er Yukon was first ex- 
plored by members of the Hudson Bay Company. 
In 1816 a trader named Bell crossed from the 
Mackenzie to the Porcupine, and so down to the 
Yukon, to which he first applied the name by 
which it is now known : it is an Indian, not 
Eskimo, word. Previous to this, in 1810, liob- 
ert Campbell, of the Hudson Bay Com])any, 
crossed from the Stikeen to the Pelly and so down 
to its junction with the Lewes or upper Yukon, 
At the point of the junction Campbell built 



LAKES AND THE YUKON TO FORTY MILE. 105 

Fort Selkirk, which was afterwards pillaged and 
burned by the Indians, and remained deserted till 
Harper built the present post, close to the site of 
the old one. Forty miles below old Fort Reliance 
is Forty Mile Creek, so that the moutlis of Forty 
Mile and Sixty Mile are a hundred miles apart. 
The river by this time is a mile wide in places, 
and filled with low wooded islands : its water is 
muddy and the eddying currents give the appear- 
ance of boiling. 

We found no one on the site of old Fort Reli- 
ance, and we used the fragments of the old build- 
ings lying around in the grass for fire- wood. It 
was practically broad daylight all night, for al- 
though the sun went down behind the hills for an 
hour or two, yet it was never darker than a 
cloudy day. 

The day of leaving Fort Reliance we came to 
the junction of the Klondike or Thronduc River 
with the Yukon, and found here a village of 
probably two hundred Indians, but no white 
men. The Indians were living in log cabins : on 
the shore numbers of narrow and shallow birch 
canoes were draw^n up, very graceful and delicate 
in shape, and marvellously light, weighing only 



lOG THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

about thirty pounds, but very diflicult for any 
one but an Indian to manoeuvre. Yet the na- 
tives spear salmon from these boats. At the 
time we were there most of the male Indians 
were stationed along the river, eagerly watching 
for the first salmon to leaj) out of the water, for 
about this time of the year the immigration of 
these fish begins, and they swim up the rivers 
from the sea thousands of miles, to place their 
&})awn in some quiet creek. On account of the 
large number of salmon who turn aside to enter 
the stream liere, the Indians called it Thron-duc 
ov Jish-water\ this is now corrupted by the min- 
ers into Klondike, the Indian village is replaced 
by the frontier city of Dawson, and the fame of 
the Klondike is throughout the world. 

The trip of forty miles from Fort Reliance to 
Forty Mile Post was made in the morning, and 
was enlivened by an exciting race between our 
boat and that belonging to Danlon. A¥e had kept 
pretty closely together on all our trip, passing 
and repassing one another, but our boat was gener- 
ally ahead ; and when we both encamped at Fort 
Reliance, the other party resolved to outwit us. 
So they got up early in the morning and slipped 




Alaska Humpbacked Salmon, Male and Fk.male. 

107 



108 TIIROUail THE YUKON fiOLD DIGGINGS. 

away before we were well awake. When we dis- 
covered that they were gone, Ave got off after them 
as quickly as possible, but as the current flows 
about seven miles an hour, and they were row- 
ing hard besides, they were long out of sight of 
us. However, we buckled down to hard rowing, 
each pulling a single oar only, and relieving one 
another at intervals, tugging away as desper- 
ately as if something important depended on it. 
When we were already in sight of Forty Mile 
Post we spied our opponents' boat about a mile 
ahead of us, and we soon overhauled them, for 
they had already spent themselves by hard row- 
ing. Then Pete knew^ a little channel which led 
up to the very centre of the cam}), while the oth- 
ers took the more roundal)Out way, so that we 
arrived and were quite settled — we assumed a 
very negligent air, as if we had been there all 
day — when the otliers arrived. We called this 
the great Anglo-American boat race and crowed 
not a little over the finish. 



CHAPTER ly. 

THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 

pORTYMILE CREEK is the oldest mining 
^ camp in the Yukon country, and the first 
where coarse gold or " gulch diggings " was found. 
In the fall of 1886 a prospector by the name of 
Franklin discovered the precious metal near the 
mouth of what is now called Forty Mile Creek, 
This stream was put down on the old maps as 
the Shitando River, but miners are very independ- 
ent in their nomenclature, and often adopt a 
new name if the old one does not suit them, pre- 
ferring a simple term with an evident meaning to 
the more euphonious ones suggestive of Pullman 
cars. At the time of the discovery of gold there 
was a post of the Alaskan Commercial Company 
at the mouth of the stream, but the trader in 
charge. Jack McQuesten, was absent in San Fran- 
cisco. As the supplies at the post were very 
low, and a rush of miners to the district was 
anticipated for the next summer, it was thought 

109 



110 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

best to try to get word to the trader, and (reorge 
AVilliains undertook to carry out a letter in mid- 
winter. 

Accompanied by an Indian, he succeeded in 
attaining the Chilkoot Pass, but was tliere 
frozen to death. The letter, however, was car- 
ried to the post at Dyea by the Indian, and 
the necessary supplies were sent, thus averting 
the threatened famine. From 1887 to 1803 the 
various gulches of Forty Mile Creek were the 
greatest gold producers of the Yukon country, 
but by 1893 the supplies of gold began to show 
exhaustion ; and about tliis time a Russian half- 
breed, by the name of Pitka, discovered gold in 
the bars of Birch Creek, some two liundred miles 
further down the Yukon. 

A large part of the population of the Forty 
Mile district rushed to the new diggings and 
built the mining camp to which they gave the 
name of Circle City, from its proximity to the 
Arctic Circle. The Forty Mile district is partly 
in British and partly in American territory, since 
the boundary line crosses the stream some dis- 
tance alcove its mouth, while Birch Creek is en- 
tirely in American territory. The world-re- 



THE FORTY BIILE DIGGINGS. Ill 

nowned Klondike, again, is within British bound- 
aries. So the tide of mining population has 
ebbed back and forth in the Yukon country, 
each wave growing lai'ger than the first, till it 
culminated in the third of the great world-rushes 
after gold, exciting, wild and romantic — the 
Klondike boom, a ti.t successor to the " forty- 
nine " days of California, and to the events which 
followed the discovery of gold in Australia. 

At the time of our visit, in 1896, Forty Mile 
Post was distinctly on the decline. Yet it con- 
tained probably 5U0 or GUO inhabitants, not 
counting the Indians, of whom there were a 
considerable number. These Indians were called 
Charley Indians, from their chief Charley. 
There is a mission near here and the Indians 
have all been Christianized. It is told that the 
Tanana Indians, who had no mission, and who 
came here out of their wild fastnesses only once 
in a while to trade, did not embrace Christianity, 
wdiich rather elated Charley's followers, as they 
considered that they now had decidedly the ad- 
vantage ; and they openly vaunted of it. In 
this country at certain times of the year, par- 
ticularly in the fall, great herds of caribou pass, 



112 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

and then one can slaughter as many as he needs 
for the winter's supply of meat, without much 
hunting, for the animals select some trail and 
are not easily scared from it. One fall a herd 
marched u[) one of the busiest mining gulches of 
Birch Creek and the miners stood in their cabin 
doors and shot them. 

So the Indians ahvays watch as eagerly for 
the caribou, as they do for the salmon in the 
summer. But this particular fall it happened 
that the animals stayed away from the Charley 
Indians' hunting grounds, but passed through 
those of the Tananas in force. The heathen 
then came down to the trading post laden with 
meat, and the chief, who knew a little English, 
taunted Charley in it. 

" Where moose, Charley '? " he asked. 

" No moose," said Charley. 

"Woo!" said the Tanana chief, grinning in 
triumph. " AYhat's the matter with your Jesus ? " 

The Indians at Forty Mile Post were mostly 
encamped in tents or were living in rude huts of 
timber plastered with mud ; while the white 
men had built houses of logs, unsquared, with 
the chinks tilled with mud and moss and the 



THE FORTY 311 LE DIGGINGS. 113 

roof covered with similar material. Prices were 
hifjfh throuo^hout : A lot of land in the middle 
of the town, say 100 by 150 feet, Avas worth 
$7,000 or $8,000 ; sugar was worth twenty-five 
cents a pound and ordinary labor ten dollars a 
day. All provisions were also very expensive, 
and the supj)ly was often short. Many common 
articles, usually reckoned among what the fool- 
ish call the necessities of life, could not be ob- 
tained by us. I say foolish, because one can 
learn from pioneering and exploring, upon how 
little life can be supported and health and 
strength maintained, and how many of the sup- 
posed necessities are really luxuries. 

The Alaskan Eskimo lives practically on fish 
alone throughout the year, without salt, without 
bread, — just fish — and grows fat and oily and of 
pungent odor. But white men can hardly be- 
come so simple in their diet without some dan- 
ger of dying in the course of the experiment, 
like the famous cow that was trained to go with- 
out eating, but whose untimely death cut short 
her career in the first bloom of success. 

The miners have always been dependent for 
supplies on steamers from San Francisco or 



114 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

Seattle, which have to make a trip of 4,000 miles 
or more ; ami, in the early days, if any accident 
occurred, there was no other source. 

I have heard of a bishop of the Episcopal 
Church, a missionaiy in this country, who lived 
all winter upon moose meat, without salt ; and 
an old miner told me of working all summer on 
flour alone. When the fall came he shot some 
caribou, and his description of his sensations on 
eating his first venison steak were touching. 
Hardly a winter has passed until very recently 
when the miners were not put on rations — so 
many pounds of bacon and so much flour to the 
man, — to biidge over the time until the steamer 
should arrive. The winter of l!SSU-90 is known 
to the old Yukon pioneer as the " starvation 
winter," for during the previous summer a suc- 
cession of accidents })revented the river boat 
from reaching Forty Mile with provisions. The 
men were finally starved out and in October they 
all began attempting to make their way down 
the Yukon, towards St. Michaels, over a thousand 
miles away, where food was known to be stored, 
having been landed at this de})ot from ocean 
steamers. ]S' early a hundred men left the post 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 115 

ill small boats. Some travelled the whole dis- 
tance to St. Michaels, others stopped and 
wintered by the way at the various miserable 
trading posts, or in the winter camps of the In- 
dians themselves, wherever food could be found. 
It happened that this year the river did not 
freeze up so early as usual, which favored the 
flight, though the journey down the lower part 
of the river was made in running ice. 

In connection with the shortness of provisions 
and supplies in these early years, a story is told 
of a worthless vagabond who used to hang- 
around Forty Mile Post, and whose hoaxes, in- 
vented to make money, put the ^vooden nutmeg 
and the oak ham of Connecticut to shame. 
There was a dearth of candles one year at the 
post, and in midwinter, when, for a while, the 
sun hardly rises at all, that was no trifling priva- 
tion. The weather was cold, as it always is at 
Forty Mile in the winter time. The trickster 
had some candle molds in his possession, but no 
grease ; so he put the wicks into the molds, 
Avhich he filled with water colored white with 
chalk or condensed milk. The water immedi- 
ately froze solid, making a very close imitation 



llfi THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

of a candle. He inanufactured a large nuinber 
and then started around the })ost to peddle tlieni. 
All bought eagerly — Indian squaws to sew by, 
miners, shop-keepers, everybody. One man 
bought a whole case and shoved them under his 
bed ; when he came to pull them out again to 
use, he found nothing but the wicks in a pile, the 
ice having melted and the water having evapo- 
rated in the warm room. What punishment was 
meted out to this unique swindler I do not 
know, but I could not learn that he was ever 
severely dealt with. 

The evening of our arrival in Fort}^ Mile Post 
we were attracted by observing a row of miners, 
who were lined up in front of the saloon en- 
gaged in watching the door of a large log cabin 
opposite, rather dilapidated, with the Avindows 
broken in. On being questioned, they said there 
was going to be a dance, but when or how they 
did not seem to know: all seemed to take only 
a languid looker-on interest, speaking of the 
affair lightly and flippantly. Presently more 
men, however, joined the group and eyed the 
cabin expectantly. In s})ite of their disclaim- 
ers they evidently expected to take part, but 



THE FORTY 51ILE DIGGINGS. 117 

where were the fair partners for the mazy 
waltz ? 

The evening wore on until ten o'clock, when 
in the dusk a stolid Indian woman, with a baby 
in the blanket on her back, came cautiously 
around the corner, and with the peculiar long 
slouchy step of her kind, made for the cabin 
door, looking neither to the right nor to the left. 
She had no fan, nor yet an opera cloak ; she was 
not even decollete ; she wore large moccasins 
on her feet — number twelve, I think, according 
to the Avhite man's system of measurement — and 
she had a bright colored handkerchief on her 
head. She was followed by a dozen others, one 
far behind the other, each silent and uncon- 
cerned, and each with a baby upon her back. 
They sidled into the log cabin and sat down on 
the benches, where they also deposited their 
babies in a row : the little red people lay there 
very still, Avith wide eyes shut or staring, but 
never crying — Indian babies know that is all 
foolishness and doesn't do any good. The moth- 
ers sat awhile looking at the ground in some one 
spot and then slowly lifted their heads to look at 
the miners who had slouched into the cabin 



118 THROUGH THE YUKON HOLD DIGGINGS. 

after them — men fresh from the diggings, spoil- 
ing for excitement of any kind. Then a man 
witii a dihipidated fiddle struck up a swinging, 
sawing melody, and in the intoxication of the 
moment some of the most reckless of the miners 
grabbed an Indian woman and began furiously 
swinging her around in a sort of waltz, while the 
others crowded around and looked on. 

Little bv little the dusk grew deeper, but 
candles were scarce and could not be afforded. 
The figures of the dancing couples grew more 
and more indistinct and their faces became lost 
to view, while the sawing of the fiddle grew 
more and more rapid, and the dancing more ex- 
cited. There was no noise, however ; scarcely a 
sound save the fiddle and the shuffling of the 
feet over the floor of rough hewn logs ; for the 
Indian women Avere stolid as ever, and the min- 
ers could not speak the language of their part- 
ners. Even the lookers-on said nothing, so that 
these silent dancing fio-ures in tlie dusk made an 
almost weird effect. 

One by one, however, the women dropped out, 
tired, picked up their babies and slouched off 
home, and the men slipped over to the saloon to 



THE FORTY 311 LE DIGGINGS. 119 

liave a drink before going to their cabins. 
Surely this squaw-dance, as they call it, was one 
of the most peculiar balls ever seen. No sound 
of reveli-y by night, no lights, no flowers, no in- 
troductions, no conversations. Of all the Muses, 
Terpsichore the nimble-footed, alone was repre- 
sented, for surely the nymph who presides over 
music would have disowned the fiddle. 

All the diggings in the Forty Mile district 
were remote from the Post, and to reach them 
one had to ascend Forty Mile Creek, a rapid 
stream, for some distance. Pete left us here, 
and we three concluded to go it alone. Inas- 
much as we were young and tender, we were 
overwhelmed with advice of such various and 
contradictory kinds that we were almost dis- 
heartened. Every one agreed that it would be 
impossible to take our boats up the river, that 
we should take an '' up river " boat, (that is, a 
boat built long and narrow, with a wide over- 
hang, so as to make as little friction with the 
water as possible, and to make upsetting diffi- 
cult) ; but when we came to inquire we found 
there was no such boat to be had. We were ad- 
vised to take half-a-dozen experienced polers, but 



120 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

such polers could not be found. Evidently we 
must either wait the larger part of the summer 
for our preparations a la mode., or go anyhow ; 
and this latter we decided to do. We announced 
our intention at the table of the man whose 
hospitality we were enjoying. He stared. 

" You'll lind Forty Mile Creek a hard river to 
go up," he said, slowly. " Have you had much 
experience in ascending rivers ? " 

"• Very little," we replied. 

" Are you good polers ? " asked another. 

"•Like the young lady who was asked whether 
she could play the piano," I answered, " we don't 
know — we never tried." Everybody roared ; 
they had been wanting to laugh for some time, 
and here was their opportunity. Later a guide 
was offered to us, but we had got on our dignity 
and refused him ; then he asked to be allowed to 
accompany us as a passenger, taking his own 
food, and helping with the boat, and we con- 
sented to this. He had a claim on the head- 
waters of Sixty Mile, to which he wished to go 
back, but could not make the journey u]i the 
river alone. A year afterwards this ])enniless 
fellow was one of the lucky men in the Klondike 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 121 

rush and came back to civilization with a reputed 
fortune of $100,000. 

We could row only a short distance up the 
creek from the post, for after this the current 
became so swift that we could make no head- 
way. We then tied a long line to the bow of 
the boat, and two of us, walking on the shore, 
pulled the line, while another stood in the bow 
and by constant shoving out into the stream, 
succeeded in overcoming the tendency for the 
pull of the line to make the boat run into the 
shore or into such shallow water that it would 
ground. AVe soon reached the canyon, supposed 
to be the most difficult place in the creek to 
pass ; here the stream is very rapid and tumbles 
foaming over huge boulders which have partially 
choked it. We towed our boat up through this, 
however, without much difficult}^, and on the 
second night camped at the boundary line. 

Here a gaunt old character, Sam Patch by 
name, had his cabin. He was famous for his 
patriotism and his vegetables. His garden was 
on the steep side of a south-facing hill and was 
sheltered from the continual frosts which fall in 
the summer nights, so that it succeeded well. 



1-22 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

Foreign vegetables, as well as native plants, 
thrive luxuriantly in Alaska so long as they can 
be kept from being- frost-bitten : for in the long- 
sunshiny summer days they grow twice as fast 
and big" as they do in more temperate climates. 
"Sam Patch's potato patch" was famous through- 
out the diggings, and the surest way to win 
Sam's heart was to go and inspect and admire it. 
Sam was always an enthusiastic American, and 
when the Canadian surveyors surveyed the 
meridian line which constituted the International 
boundary, they ran it right through his potato 
patch ; but he stood by his American flag and 
refused to haul it down — quite unnecessarily, 
because no one asked him to do so. 

The next day we reached the mouth of the 
little tributary called Moose Creek. From here 
a trail thirty miles in length leads over the low 
mountains to the headwaters of Sixty Mile 
Creek, where several of the richest gulches of 
the Forty Mile district were located. We 
beached our boat, therefore, put packs on our 
backs and started. At this time the days were 
hot and the mosquitoes vicious, and nearly every 
night was frosty ; so we sweat and smarted all 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 123 

day, and shivered by night, for our blankets 
were hardly thick enough. We used to remark 
on rising in the morning that Alaska was a de- 
lightful country, with temperature to suit every 
taste; no matter if one liked hot weather or 
moderate or cold, if he would wait he would get 
it inside of twenty-four hours. 

We were tired when we started over the trail, 
and the journey was not an easy one, for we 
carried blankets, food, cameras, and other small 
necessaries. We camped in a small swamp the 
fii-st night, where the ground was so wet that we 
were obliged to curl up on the roots of trees, 
close to the trunks, to keep out of the water. 
The second day a forest fire blocked our journey, 
but we made our way through it, treading swiftly 
over the burning ground and through the thick 
smoke : then we emerged onto a bare rocky ridge, 
from which we could look down, on the right, over 
the net-work of little valleys which feed Forty 
Mile Creek, and on the other side over the tribu- 
taries of Sixty Mile Creek, clearly defined as if 
on a map. The ridge on which we travelled was 
cut up like the teeth of a saw, so that a large ]iart 
of our tiuie was spent in climl)ing up and down. 



124 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

On the latter part of the second day we found 
no wood, and at night we coukl hardly prepare 
food enough to kee}) our stonuichs from sicken- 
ing. My feet had become raw at the start from 
hard boots, and ever}^ step was a torture ; yet the 
boots could not be taken off, for the trail was 
covered with small sliarp stones, and the packs on 
our backs pressed heavily downward. The third 
day we separated, each descending from the 
mountain ridge into one of the little gulches, in 
which we could see the white tents or the brown 
cabins of the miners, with smoke rising here and 
there. My way led me down a rocky ridge and 
then abruptly into the valley of Miller C^reek. 
As I sat down and rested, surveying the little 
valley well dotted with shanties, two men came 
climbing up the trail and sat down to chat. They 
were going to the spot on Forty Mile Creek 
which we had just left — there was a keg of whisky 
" cached " there and they had been selected a com- 
mittee of tw(^ by the miners to escort the afore- 
said booze into camp. They were alternately 
doleful at the prospect of the sixty mile tramp and 
jubilant over the promised whisky, for, as they in- 
formed us, the camp had been "• dry for some time." 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 125 

Descending into the camp where the men were 
busily working, I stopped to watch them. Gaunt, 
muscular, sweating, they stood in their long boots 
in the wet gravel and shovelled it above their 
heads into " sluice boxes," — a series of long 
wooden troughs in which a continuous current 
of water was running. The small material was 
carried out of the lower end of the sluices by the 
water. Here and there the big stones choked 
the current and a man with a long shovel was 
continuously occupied with cleaning the boxes of 
such accumulations. Everybody was working 
intensely. The season is short in Alaska and the 
claim-owner is generally a hustler ; and men who 
are paid ten dollars a day for shovelling must 
jump to earn their money. 

Strangers were rare on Miller Creek in those 
days, and everybody stopped a minute to look and 
answer my greetings politely, but there was no 
staring, and everybody went on with his work 
without asking any questions. Men are courteous 
in rough countries, where each one must travel 
on his merits and fight his own battles, and where 
social standing or previous condition of servitude 
count for nothing. I wandered slowly down 



126 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

from claim to claim. They were all working, 
one below the other, for this was the best part 
of one of the oldest and richest gulches of the 
Forty Mile district. One man asked me where 
I was going to sleep, and on my telling him 
that I had not thought of it, replied that there 
were some empty log cabins a little distance 
below. Further down a tall, dark, mournful 
man addressed me in broken English, with a 
Canadian French accent, and put the same ques- 
tion. 

" I work on ze night shift to-night," he contin- 
ued, " so I do not sleep in my bed. You like, you 
no fin' better, you is very welcome, sair, to sleep 
in my cabine, in my bed." 

I accepted gratefully, for I was very tired ; so 
the Frenchman conducted me to a cabin about 
six feet square and insisted upon cooking a little 
supper for me. He was working for day's wages, 
he answered to my rather blunt questions, but 
hoped that he would earn enough this summer 
and the next winter to buy an outfit and enough 
" grub " to go prospecting for himself, on the 
Tanana, which had not been ex])lored and where 
he believed there must be gold ; prospectors get 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 127 

very firmly convinced of such things with no real 
reason. 

After supper he darkened the windows for me 
and went to work. I sought the comfort of a 
Avooden bunk, covering myself with a dirty bed- 
quilt. It was very ancient and perhaps did not 
smell sweet, but what did I care ? It was 
Heaven. The darkness was delicious. I had not 
known real darkness for so long throughout the 
summer — always sleeping out of doors in the light 
of the Alaskan night — that I had felt continually 
strained and uncomfortable for the lack of it, and 
this darkened cabin came to me like the sweetest 
of opiates. 

When I awoke the Frenchman was preparing 
breakfast. I had slept some ten hours without 
moving. There was only one tin plate, one cup, 
and one knife and fork, and he insisted upon my 
eating with them, while he stood by and gravely 
superintended, urging more slapjacks upon me. 
I suddenly felt ashamed that I had told him 
neither m}'^ name nor business, for although I had 
questioned him freely, he had not manifested the 
slightest curiosity. So without being asked I 
volunteered some information about myself. He 



128 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

listened attentively and politely, l)ut without any 
great interest. It was quite apparent that the 
most important thing to him was that I was a 
stranger. Soon after breakfast I thanked him 
warmly and went away — I knew enough of 
miners not to insult him hy offering him money 
for his hospitality. 

The night shift of shovellers had given Avay to 
the day shift, and work was going on as fiercely 
as ever. The bottoms of all these gulches are 
covered with roughly stratified shingle, most of 
which slides down from the steep hillsides of the 
creek. Among the rocks on the hillsides are 
many quartz veins, which carry " iron pyrite " or 
" fool's gold " ; these often contain small specks 
of real gold. So when all the rubble gets to- 
gether and is broken up in the bottom of the 
stream, where the water flows through it, the 
different materials in the rocks begin to separate 
one from another, more or less, according to the 
difference in their weights and the fineness of 
the fragments into which they are broken. Kow 
gold is the heaviest of metals, and the result is, 
that through all this jostling and crowding it 
gradually works itself down to the bottom of the 



THE FORTY 311 LE DIGGINGS. 129 

heap, and generally quite to the solid rock l^elow. 
This has been found to be the case nearly every- 
Avhere. In process of time the gravel accumula- 
tions become quite thick ; in Miller Creek, for 
example, they varied from three or four feet at 
the head of the valley, where I was, to fifty or 
sixty at the mouth. But all the upper gravels 
are barren and valueless. "Where the gravels are 
not deep, they are simply shovelled off and out of 
the way, till the lower part, where the gold lies, 
is laid bare ; this work generally takes a year, 
during which time there is no return for the 
la;bor. 

Once the pay gravel — as it is called — is 
reached, a long wooden trough called a " sluice," 
is constructed, the current turned through it, and 
the gravel shovelled in. This work can only be 
carried on in the summer-time, when the water 
is not frozen, so that the warm months are the 
time for hustling, day and night shifts being em- 
ployed, with as many men on each as can work 
conveniently together. In case the barren over- 
lying gravel is very deep, the miners wait until 
it is frozen and then sink shafts to the pay dirt, 
which they take out by running tunnels and ex- 



130 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

cavating chambers or " stopes " along the bed 
rock. In this work they do not use Wasting, but 
build a small fire wherever they wish to pene- 
trate, and as soon as the gravel thaws they 
shovel it up and convey it out, meanwhile pushing 
the fire ahead so that more may thaw out. In 
this way they accumulate the pay dirt in a heap 
on the surface, and as soon as warm weather 
comes they shovel it into the sluices as before. 

At the time of my visit, the construction of 
the sluices was a work of considerable labor, for 
as there was no saw-mill in the country, the 
boards from which they were made had to be 
sawed by hand out of felled trees. 

In the last few of the trough-sections or sluice- 
boxes, slats are placed, sometimes transverse, 
sometimes lengthwise, sometimes oblique, some- 
times crossed, forming a grating — all patterns 
have nearly the same effect, namely, to catch the 
gold and the other heav}^ minerals by means 
of vortexes which are created. Thus behind 
these slats or " riffles " the gold lodges, while 
the lighter and barren gravel is swept l;)y the 
current of water out of the trough, and the 
heavy stones are thrust out by the shovel of the 



132 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS 

miner. Nearly the same jirocess as that which 
in nature concentrates gokl at the bottom of the 
gravels and on top of the bed-rock is adopted by 
man to cleanse the gold perfectly from the at- 
tendant valueless minerals. 

Everybody was hospitable along the gulch. I 
had five different invitations to dinner, — hearty 
ones, too — and some were loath to be put off 
with the plea of previous engagement. They 
Avere all eager for news from the outside world, 
from which they had not heard since the fall be- 
fore ; keenly interested in political developments, 
at home and abroad. They were intelligent and 
better informed than the ordinary man, for in 
the long winter months there is little to do but 
to sleep and read. They develop also a surpris- 
ing taste for solid literature ; nearly everywhere 
Shakespeare seemed to be the favorite author, all 
nationalities and degrees of education uniting in 
the general liking. A gulch that had a full set 
of Shakespeare considered itself in for a rather 
cozy winter ; and there were regular Shakes- 
peare clubs, where each miner took a certain 
character to read. Books of science, and espe- 
cially philosophy, were also widely sought. It 



THE FORTY 311 LE DIGGINGS. 133 

has been my theory that in conditions like this, 
where there are not the thousand and one stimuli 
to fritter away the intellectual energy, the men- 
tal qualities become stronger and keener and the 
little that is done is done with surprising vigor 
and clearness. 

Down the creek I found a Swede, Avorking 
over tlie gravels on a claim that had already 
been washed once. He had turned off the water 
from the sluice-boxes and was scraping up the 
residue from among the riffles. Mostly black 
heavy magnetic iron particles with many spark- 
ling yellow grains of gold, green hornblendes 
and ruby-colored garnets. He put all this into a 
gold pan, (a large shallow steel pan such as used 
in the first stages of prospecting), and proceeded 
to " pan out " the gold yet a little more. He 
immersed the vessel just below the surface of a 
pool of water, and by skillful twirlings caused the 
contents to be agitated, and while the heavier 
particles sank quickly to the bottom, he contin- 
uously worked off the lighter ones, allowing 
them to flow out over the edge of the pan. Yet 
he was very careful that no bit of gold should 
escape, and when he had carried this process as 



134 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

far as he could, he invited me into his cabin to 
see liim continue tlie separation. 

Here he spread the " dust " on the table and 
began blowing it with a small hand-bellows. 
The garnets, the hornblendes and the fragments 
of quartz, being lighter than the rest, soon rolled 
out to one side, leaving only the gold and the 
magnetic iron. Then with a hand magnet he 
drew the iron out from the gold, leaving the 
noble yellow metal nearly pure, in flakes and 
irregular grains. As the material he had sep- 
arated still contained some gold, he put this 
aside to be treated with quicksilver. The quick- 
silver is poured into the dust, Avhere it forms an 
amalgam with the gold : it is then strained off, 
and the amalgam is distilled — the quicksilver is 
vaporized, leaving the gold behind. 

This man had his wife with him, a tired, 
lonely looking woman. I asked her if there 
were no more women on the creek. She said 
no; there was another woman over on Glacier 
Creek, and she wanted so much to see her some- 
times, but she was not a good woman, so she 
could not go. She was lonely, she said ; she had 
been here three 3^ears and had not seen a woman. 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 135 

From some of the miners I obtained a pair 
of Indian moccasins, which I padded well with 
hay and cloth to make them easy for my dialing 
feet ; then I slnng my own heavy boots on top 
of my pack and the next morning bade the gulch 
good-bye, feeling strengthened from my rest. 
As I climbed out of the gulch I met the miners 
who had gone as a committee to escort the 
whisky, arriving with it, white and speckled 
with fatigue, speaking huskily, (but not from 
drinking), yet triumphant. The day was cool 
and when one is alone one is apt to travel hard ; 
but the unwonted lightness of my feet and the 
freedom from pain encouraged me, so I set my 
Indian moccasins into a regular Indian trot, and 
by noon had covered the entire fifteen miles that 
constituted the first half of the journey. This 
brought me to a locality dignified by the name 
of the " Half- AV ay House," from a tent-fly of 
striped drilling left by some one, in which the 
miners were accustomed to pass the night in 
their journeys over the trail. Here I found 
Schrader, who had arrived late the night before 
and was preparing to make a start. We lighted 
a fire and made some tea, which with corned 



'136 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

beef and crackers, made up our lunch. While 
we were eating, our old companion Pete, with 
two more miners, came in from the opposite 
direction to that from which we had come ; 
he was on his way to visit his old claim on 
Miller Creek, Afterwards we got away, and 
kept up a steady Indian trot till we reached 
our camp on Forty Mile Creek at about six 
o'clock. 

We found Goodrich already arrived and 
wrestling with the cooking, with which he was 
having tremendously hard luck. This travelling 
thirty miles in one day, carrying an average of 
thirty-five pounds, I considered something of an 
achievement ; but the tiredness which came the 
next day showed that the energy meant for a 
long time had been drawn upon. 

For four days after that we worked our way 
up Forty Mile Creek, making on an average 
seven or eight miles a day. Mosquitoes were 
abundant, and the weather showery. We used 
the same method of pulling and poling as before, 
— a laborious process and one calculated to ruin 
the most angelic disposition. The river Avas 
very low and consequently full of rapids and 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 



137 



" riffles," as the miners call the shallow places 
over which the water splashes. On many of 
these riffles our boat stuck fast, and we drao'o-ed 
it over the rocks by sheer force, wading out and 
grasping it by the gunwale. Again, where there 




"Tkackixg" a Boat Upstukam. 



were many large boulders piled together in deep 
water, the 1joat Avould stick upon one, and Ave 
would be obliged to wade out again and pilot it 
through by hand, now standing dry upon a high 
boulder, and now floundering waist deep in the 



138 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

cold water at some awkward ste}) — maybe losing 
temper and scolding our innocent companions 
for having shoved the boat too violently. 

We generally worked till late, and began 
cooking our supper in the dusk — which was now 
beginning to come — over a camp- tire whose glare 
dazzled us so that when we tossed our flapjack 
into the air, preparatory to browning its raw 
upper side, we often lost sight of it in the gloom, 
and it sprawled upon the fire, or fell ignomin- 
iously over the edge of the frying-j>an. Those 
were awful moments ; no one dared to laugh at 
the cook then. We took turns at cooking, and 
patience was the watchword. The cook needed 
it and much more so, those on whom he prac- 
ticed. One of our number produced a series of 
slapjacks once which rivalled my famous Chilkoot 
biscuit. They were leaden, flabby, wretched. 
We ate one apiece, and ate nothing else for a 
week, for, as the woodsmen say, it " stuck to our 
ribs " wonderfully. 

" How much baking powder did you put in 
with the flour ? " we asked the cook. 

" How should I know ? " he answered, indig- 
nantly. " What was right, of course." 



THE FOKTY MILE DIGGINGS. 139 

" Did you measure it '? " We persisted, for 
the slapjack was irritating us inside. 

"Anybody," replied the cook, with crushing 
dignity, " who knows anything, knows how much 
baking powder to put in with flour without 
measuring it. I just used common sense." So 
we concluded tliat he had put in too much com- 
mon sense and not enough baking powder. 

Just above where the river divides into two 
nearly equal forks, the water grew so shallow 
that we could not drag our boat further, so we 
hauled it up and filled it with green boughs 
to prevent it from drying and cracking in the 
sun ; then we built a " cache." 

It may be best to explain the word " cache," 
so freely used in Alaska. The term came from 
the French Canadian voyageurs or trappers ; it 
is pronounced " cash " and comes from the 
French cacher, to hide. So a cache is something 
hidden, and was applied by these woodsmen to 
hidden supplies and other articles of value, which 
could not be carried about, being secreted until 
tlie owners should come that Avay again. In 
Alaska, when anything was thus left, a high 
platform of poles was built, supported by the 



140 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

trunks of slender trees, and the goods were left on 
this platform, covered in some way against the 
ravages of wild animals. To this structure the 
name " cache " came to be applied ; and later 
was extended to the storehouses wherein the 



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A "Cache." 



natives kept their winter supplies of fish and 
smoked meat, for these houses have a somewhat 
similar structure, being built on top of upright 
poles like the old Swiss lake-dwellings. 

The next morning we shouldered our pack- 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 141 

sacks, containing our blankets, a little food, and 
other necessities, and were again on the tramp, 
this time having no trail, however, but being 
obliged to keep on the side of the stream. Here, 
as below, the river flowed in one nearly continu- 
ous canyon, but on one side or the other flats 
had been built out on the side where the current 
was slackest, while on the opposite side was 
deep water quite up to the bold clifl's ; and since 
the current sweeps from side to side, one encoun- 
ters levels and gravel flats, and high rocks, on 
the same side. Many of the cliffs we scaled, 
crawling gingerly along the almost perpendicular 
side of the rock. The constant temptation in 
such climbing is to go higher, where it ahvays 
looks easier, but when one gets up it seems im- 
possible to return. However, we had no acci- 
dents, which, considering how awkward our 
packs made us, was lucky. At other times we 
waded the stream to avoid the cliffs. 

At night we reached the mouth of Franklin 
Gulch, where active mining had been going on 
for some time. The miners were almost out of 
food, the boat which ordinarily brought provi- 
sions from Forty Mile Post having been unable 



142 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

to get up, on account of the low water-. Yet 
they gave us freely what they could. We 
took possession of an eni})ty log cabin, lighted a 
fire and toasted some trout which they gave us, 
and this with crackers and bacon made oar 
meal ; then we discovered some bunks with 
straw in them, which we agreed were gilt-edged, 
and proceeded to make use of them without de- 
lay. Only a few of the total number of miners 
were here, the rest having gone over the moun- 
tain to Chicken Creek, where the latest find of 
gold was reported. The men had not heard 
from " the outside " for some time. Even Forty 
Mile Post was a metropolis for them and they 
were glad to hear from it. They had few 
books and onl}^ a couple of newspapers three years 
old. 

"Doesn't it get very dull here ?" we asked of 
an old stager ; " what do you do for amuse- 
ment ? " 

" Do ! " he echoed with grave humor, " Do ! 
why, God bless you, we 'ave very genteel amuse- 
ments. As for readin' an' litrachure an' all that, 
wy, dammit, wen the fust grub comes in the 
spring, we 'ave a nieetin' an' we call all the boys 



THE FORTY 3IILE DIGGINGS. 143 

together an' we appoint a chairman an' then some 
one reads from the directions on the bakin'-povv- 
der boxes." 

I set out alone for Chicken Creek the next 
morning, following a line of blazed trees up over 
the mountain from Franklin Creek. I had been 
told that once up on the divide one could look right 
down into Chicken Creek, and I have no doubt 
that this is true, for on attaining the top of the 
hill a stretch of country twenty miles across was 
spread out before me as on a map, while directly 
below was a considerable branch of Forty Mile 
Creek, divided into many closely adjacent 
gulches. One of these must be Chicken Creek, 
but which ? There were no tents and no smoke 
visible, much as the eve mioht strain through 
the field-glasses. Just here the trail gave out, the 
blazer having evidently grown tired of blazing. 
Thinking to obtain a better view into the valley, 
I set out along the hill which curved around it, 
tramping patiently along until nearly night over 
the sharp ridges, but without ever seeing any 
signs of life in the great desolate country below 
me. When the dark shadows were striking the 
valleys, I caught sight of what appeared to be a 



144 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

faint smoke in the heart of a black timbered 
gulch, and I made straightway down the moun- 
tain-side for it, hurrying for fear the fire should 
be extinguished before I could get close enough 
to it to find the place. I had no doubt that this 
came from the log cabin of some prospector, who 
would be only too glad to welcome a weary 
stranger with a warm supper and a blanket on 
the floor. 

On getting down, away from the bare rocks on 
the mountain ridge, I found deep moss, tiresome 
to my wearied limbs, and further down great 
areas of " niggerheads " — the terror of travellers 
in the northern swamps. These niggerheads 
are tufts of vegetation which grow upwards by 
successive accumulations till they are knee high 
or even more. They are scattered thickly about, 
but each tuft is separated completely from all the 
rest, leaving hardly space to step between ; if one 
attempts to walk on top of them he will slip off, 
so there is nothing to do but to walk on the 
ground, lifting the legs over the obstacles Avith 
great exertion. The tops of the tufts are covered 
with long grass, which droops down on all sides, 
whence the name niggerheads, — tetes de femme 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 145 

or women's heads is the name given them by the 
French Canadian voyageurs. 

Still lower the brush and vines became so thick 
that it was almost impossible to force the way 
through in places. At last I emerged upon a 
grey lifeless area Avhich seemed to have been 
burned over. There were no trees or plants, but 
the bare blackened sticks of what had once been 
a young growth of spruce still stood upright, 
though some trunks had fallen and lay piled, ob- 
stacles to travelling. The whole looked peculiarly 
forlorn. A little further I came to the spot 
where I had seen the smoke. There was nothine- 

o 

but a stagnant pool covered so deep with green 
scum that one caught only an occasional glimpse 
of the black water beneath, and from this, unsav- 
ory mists were rising in the chill of the evening 
air. I had mistaken these vapors for smoke from 
ray post miles up the mountain. My dream of a 
log cabin and a blanket went up likewise in 
smoke. 

It was now eleven o'clock at night, and twi- 
light ; I had walked at least twenty miles through 
a rough country and could go no further. So I 
broke off the smaller dried trees and sticks and 



146 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

lighted a fire, then I ate some craclvers and bacon 
that I had witli me, but I did not dare to drink 
the water of the stagnant pool, which was all 
there was to be had. The night grew frosty, and 
I had no blankets; but I lay down close to the 
fire and caught fifteen-minute naps. Once I 
woke with the smell of burning cloth in my nos- 
trils : in my sleep I had edged too close to the 
grateful warmth, and my coat and the notebook 
in my pocket, containing all my season's notes, 
had caught fire. I rolled over on them and crushed 
out the fire with my fingers, and after that I 
shivered away a little further from the fire. At 
about three o'clock it grew light enough to see 
the surrounding country, and I started out again 
for the first point I had reached on the ridge the 
morning before, thinking to get back to Franklin 
gulch, for I was thoroughly exhausted. On reach- 
ing the ridge, however, I met a miner coming 
over the trail ; he agreed to pilot me to the new 
prospects, so I turned back again. 

There were fifteen or twenty men in the gulch 
which we finally reached, all living in tents in a 
very primitive way, and all very short of provi- 
sions, yet, hospitable to the last morsel, they freely 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 147 

offered the best they had. They were poor, too ; 
everybody does not get rich in the gokl diggings, 
even in Alaska. In fact, previous to the Klon- 
dilve discovery, tlie hirgest net sum of money 
taken out by any one man was about $30,o<»0, 
while hundreds could not pay for their provisions 
or get enough to buy a ticket out of the country. 
The Klondike, too, has been badly lied about. 
Not one man in twenty who goes there makes 
more than a bare living, and many have to "hus- 
tle " for that harder than they would at home. 
So the hospitality of the miners, such as I found 
it nearly everywhere on the Yukon, is not a mere 
act of courtesy which costs nothing, but the gen- 
uine unselfishness which cheerfully divides the 
last crust with a passing stranger. 

Having been strengthened by two square 
meals, simple but sufficient, I started back for 
Franklin (lulch the same night. It l)egan to rain 
in torrents on the way, and this, as usual, drove 
out the mosquitoes and made them unusualh^ sav- 
age. They attacked me in such numl)ers that in 
spite of my gloves and veil I was nearly fran- 
tic. The best relief was to stride along at a good 
round pace, for this kept most of the pests at my 



148 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

back, and gave me a vent for my wrought-up 
nerves ; and at the same time I had the satisfac- 
tion of knowing I was "getting there." The 
thong of my moccasin became undone, but I did 
not dare to stop to tie it, but kept plunging along, 
shuffling it with me. I reached our cabin at the 
mouth of Franklin Gulch, and the sight of the 
bunk with straw in it, and the familiar grey 
blanket, was sweet to me. 

Next day we bade the miners at the creek's 
mouth good-bye, with promises to hurry up the 
provision-boat if possible, and made our way to 
where we had left our boat and cache. The 
next morning we launched the Skookum again, 
and began our journey back. Going down was 
quicker work than coming up, not so laborious, 
and far more exciting. Owing to the lowness of 
the water, the stream was one succession of small 
rapids, which were full of boulders ; and to steer 
the boat, careering like a race horse, among 
these, was a pretty piece of work. One pulled 
the oars to give headway, another steered, and 
the third stood in the bow, pole in hand, 
to fend us off from such rocks as we were in 
danger of striking. We soon found that the 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 149 

safest part of such a rapid is where the waves 
are roughest, for here the water, rebounding 
from the shallow shore on either side, meets in a 
narrow channel, where it tosses and foams, yet 
here is the only place where there is no danger 
of striking. 

The second day out we ran twenty-five or 
thirty of these rapids. In running through one 
we pulled aside to avoid a large boulder sticking 
up in midstream, and then saw in front of us 
another boulder just at the surface, which we 
had not before noticed. It was too late, how- 
ever, and the boat stuck fast in a second, and 
began to turn over from the force of the water 
behind. With one accord we all leaped out of 
the boat, expecting to find foothold somewhere 
among the boulders, and hold the boat or shove 
her off so that she should not capsize ; but none 
of us touched bottom, though we sank to our 
necks, still grasping the gunwale of the boat. 
Our being out, however, made the boat so much 
lighter that she immediately slipped over the 
rock and went gloriously down the rapid, broad- 
side, we hanging on. As soon as we could we 
clambered in, each grasped a paddle or oars or 



150 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

pole, and by great good luck we had no further 
accident. 

Some distance further down we ag-ain sie-hted 
white water ahead, where the stream ran hai-d 
against a perpendicular cliff. Some miners were 
"rocking" gravel for gold in the bars just 
above ; and we yelled to them to know if we 
could run the rapids. 

" Yes," came the ansAver, " if ^^ou're a d d 

good man ! " 

" All right— thanks ! " we cried, and sailed 
serenely through. This was known by the 
cheerful name of Dead Man's Kiffle. Owing to 
the strong wind blowing, the mosquitoes were 
not very annoying these few days ; the sun was 
warm and bright, and the hillsides Avere covered 
thickly with a carmine flower which gave them 
a general brilliant appearance. These things, 
with the exhilaration of running rapids, made a 
sort of vacation — an outing, a picnic, as it were — 
in contrast to our previous hard work. When 
we got to the Miller Creek trail we took on a 
couple of miners who wanted to get out of the 
country, but had no boat in which to go down 
to Forty Mile Post. They had worked for some 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 151 

time and had barely succeeded in makino^ enouoh 
to buy food, and now, a little homesick and dis- 
couraged, they had made up their minds to try 
to get out and back to '' God's country " as they 
called it — Colorado. AVith their help we let our 
boat down through the " Caiion " safely, and 
the next day, — the 29th of July, — arriyed at 
Forty Mile Post. 

At the Post we found that plenty was reign- 
ing, for the first steamboat had arrived, bringing 
a lot of sorely-needed provisions. The trader in 
charge gaye us a fine lunch of eggs, moosemeat, 
canned asparagus, and other delicacies, and then 
we took possession of a deserted log cabin. On 
ransacking around we found a Yukon lamp, con- 
sisting of a twisted bit of cotton stuck into a 
pint bottle of seal oil, and when it began to grow 
dusk we lighted it and sat down at the table and 
wrote home to our friends ; for the steamer had 
gone further up the river and would return in a 
few days, so that letters sent down by her would 
probably be ahead of us in getting home — eight 
thousand miles ! We had laid in a new stock of 
provisions. Flour, I remember was $8.00 for 
100 pounds, and we managed to get a few of 



152 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

the last eggs which the steamer had brought, at 
$1.(H) a dozen. 

The Skookum had suffered considerably in our 
Forty Mile trip, and we spent a large part of the 
next day in patching her, plugging her seams 
with oakum and sealing them with hot pitch. 
One of our number, who was cooking for the 
boat-menders, suddenl}^ appeared on the scene, 
chasing a pack of yelping dogs with our long 
camp-axe. He had gone to the woodpile for a 
moment, leaving the door ajar. At this mo- 
ment a grey dog whose tail had been cut off 
somehow, was looking around the log house 
opposite — he had been on guard and watching 
our door for the last twenty-four hours. He 
uttered a low yelp which brought a dozen others 
together from all quarters, all lean, strong and 
sneaking; and they slipped into our door. 
When the cook turned from the woodpile a 
minute later he was just in time to aim a billet 
at the last one as he emerged from the cabin 
with our cheese in his mouth. They fled swiftly 
and were not to be caught : and an examination 
showed that they had, in their silent and well 
organized raid, cleaned our larder thoroughly. 



THE FORTY MILE DIGGINGS. 



153 



having eaten the delicacies on the spot and 
carried off nearly all the rest. 




Native Dous. 



The Indian dog is a study, for he is much un- 
like his civilized l)rother. lie rarely barks, never 
at strangers, and takes no notice of a white man 
Avho arrives in the vilhige, — even though the vil- 
lage may never have seen such a thing, and the 
children scream, the women flee, and the men are 
troubled and silent — but he howls nights. A dog 
wakes up in the middle of the night, yawns, looks 
at the stars, and listens. There is not a sound. 



154 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

" IIow dull and stupid it is here in Ouklaviga- 
miite," he thinks ; " not nearly as livel}^ as it was 
in Mumtreghloghmembramute. There we had 
lights nearly every night, sometimes twice. If I 
only knew a dog I was sure I could lick — anyhow, 
here goes for a good long howl. I'll show them 
that there is a dog in town with spirit enough to 
make a noise, anyhow." AVith that he tunes up 
— do, re, mi, tra-la-la, dulce, crescendo, grand 
Wagnerian smash. The other dogs wake up and 
one nudges the other and says, " C)h, ni}^, what a 
lark ! Isn't it fun ! Let's yell too — whoop, roo, 
riaow ! " And just as men get excited at a foot- 
ball game, or an election, or when the fire-alarm 
rings, these dogs yell and grow red in the face. 
Then the inhabitants wake up and get out after 
the dogs, who run and yelp ; and after a while 
each cur crawls into a hiding-place and goes to 
sleep. In the morning they wake up and wriggle 
their tails. " What enthusiasm there was last 
night — but — er — I didn't quite catch on to the 
idea — of course I yelled to help the other fellows 
— it's such fun being enthusiastic, you know." 

This ha])pens every night. The Indian dog- 
makes it a ])oint to stand around like a bum}) on 



THE FORTY 3IILE DIGGINGS. 155 

a log and look stupid ; Avhen he has fooled you to 
that extent he ^vill surprise you some day by a 
daring theft, for he is clever as a man and quick 
as an express train. 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE AMEKICAN CHEEK DIGGINGS. 

pROM Forty Mile we floated down the Yukon 
A again, and in a day's journey camped at the 
mouth of Mission Creek, not then down on the 
map. It had received its name from miners who 
had come there prospecting. Several of them 
were encamped in tents, and they came over and 
silently watched our cooking, evidently sizing us 
up. 

" When did you leave the Outside ? " asked a 
blue-eyed, blonde, shaggy man. (The Outside 
means anywhere but Alaska — a man who has 
been long in the countrv falls into the idea of 
considering himself in a kind of a prison, and re- 
fers to the rest of the woi'ld as lying beyond the 
door of this.) 

" In June," we replied. 

" How did the Harvard-Yale football game 
come out last fall ? " he inquired eagerly — it was 
now August, and nearly time for the next ! 

156 



THE A3IERICAN CREEK DIGGINGS. 157 

" Harvard was whipped, of course," w^e an- 
swered. 

"• Look here," he said, firing up, " you needn't 
say 'of course.' Harvard is my college ! " 

I Avas engaged in reinforcing my overalls with 
a piece of bacon sack ; I could not help being 
amused at this fair-haired savage being a col- 
lege man. " That makes no difference," I re- 
plied. "Harvard's our college too — all of us." 

" What are you giving me ? " he ejaculated, and 
at first I thought he looked a little angry, as if 
he thought we w^ere trifling with him ; and then a 
little supercilious, as he surveyed the forlorn con- 
dition of my clothing, which the removal of the 
overalls I wore instead of trousers had exposed. 

" Hard facts," I said. " Classes of '92 and '93. 
Lend me your sheath-knife." 

" Why-ee ! " he exclaimed. " Ninety-three's my 
class. Shake ! — Kali, rah, rah ! Who are we ? 
— You know ! — Who are we ? We are Harvard 
ninetj^-three — wdiat can we do ? — What can we 
DO ? — We can lick Harvard ninety-two — cocka- 
doodle-doodle-doo — Harvard, Harvard— ninety- 
two — hooray ! " 

The next day we tramped over to American 



158 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

Creek together, where some new gold diggings 
were just being developed. The Harvard miner 
had had no tea for several months, as he told us 
(and one who has been living in Alaska knows what 
a serious thing that is) so we brought a pound pack- 
age along to make a drink for lunch. At Ameri- 
can Creek we got a large tomato can outside of 
a miner's cabin, and the Harvard man offered to 
do the brewing. 

" How much shall I put in ? " he asked. 

"Suit yourself," was the answer. 

He took a tremendous handful. "Is this" too 
much ? " he asked, apologetically. " You see, I 
haven't had tea for three months, and I feel like 
having a good strong cup." We assured him that 
the strength of the drink was to be limited only 
by his own desires. He was tempted to another 
handful, and so little by little, till half the ])ack- 
age was in the can. When he was satisfietl, we 
told him to keep the remaining half pound for the 
next time. He was disappointed. 

" If I had known you intended giving it to me," 
he replied, " I wouldn't have used so much." AYe 
drank tlie tea eagerly, for we were tired, but my 
head spun afterwards. 



THE AMERICAN CREEK DIGGINGS. 159 

There were some paying- claims already on this 
creek — it Avas a little stream which one could leap 
at almost any point — and on the day we arrived 
we saw the clean-up in one of them. It was very 
dazzling to see the coarse gold that was scraped 
from the riffles of the sluice-boxes into the baking- 
powder cans which were used to store it. There 
was gold of all sizes, from fine dust up to pieces 
as big as pumpkin seed ; but this was the result 
of a week's work of several men, and much time 
had been spent in getting the claim ready before 
work could begin. Still, the results were very 
good, the clean-up amounting, I Avas told, to 
" thirty dollars to the shovel " — that is, thirty 
dollars a day to each man shovelling gravel into 
the sluices. 

On the edge of the stream the rock, a rusty 
slate, lay loosely ; one of the miners was thrust- 
ing his pick among the pieces curiously, and on 
turning one over showed the crevice beneath filled 
Avith flat pieces of yellow gold of all sizes. They 
Avere very thin and probably Avorth only about 
fiA^e dollars in all, but lying as they did the sight 
Avas enough to give one the gold fever, if he did 
not yet have it. The Harvard man and his com- 



160 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

panion were immediately seized with a violent 
attack, and set off down the stream to stake out 
claims, meanwhile talking over plans of wintering 
here, so as to be early on the ground the next 
spring. 

I slept on the floor of a miner's cabin that 
night and the next morning made my way back 
to our camp on the Yukon. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 

THE next night we reached that part of the 
river where Circle City was put down on 
the map we carried, but not finding it, camped 
on a gravelly beach beneath a timbered l)luff. 
When we went up the bluff to get wood for our 
fire the mosquitoes fairly drove us back and con- 
tinued bothering us all night, biting through our 
blankets and giving us very little peace, though 
we slept with our hats, veils, and gloves on. 
We afterwards found that Circle City had at first 
been actually started at about this point, but 
was soon afterwards moved further down, to 
where we found it the next day. 

We had been looking forward to our arrival in 
this place for several reasons, one of which was 
that we had had no fresh meat for over a month, 
and hoped to find moose or caribou for sale. 
As our boat came around the bend and ap- 
proached the settlement of log huts dignified by 

161 



1G2 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

the name of Circle City, we noticed quite a large 
number of people crowding down to the shore to 
meet us, and as soon as we got within hailing 
distance one of the foremost yelled out : 

" Got any moose meat ? " 

When we answered " No," the crowd im- 
mediately dispersed and we did not need to 
inquire about the supply of fresh meat in 
camp. 

We landed in front of the Alaska Commercial 
Company's store, kept by Jack McQuesten. On 
jumping ashore, I went up immediately, in search 
of information, and as I stepped in I heard my 
name called in a loud voice. I answered promjitly 
" Here, " with no idea of what was wanted, for 
there was a large crowd in the store ; but from 
the centre of the room something was passed from 
hand to hand towards me, which proved to be a 
package of letters from home — the first news I 
had received for over two months. On inquiry 
I found that the mail up the river had just ar- 
rived, and the storekeeper, who was also post- 
master ex q^cio, had begun calling out the ad- 
dresses on the letters to the expectant crowd 
of miners, and had got to my name as I entered 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 163 

the door — a coincidence, I suppose, but surely a 
pleasant and striking one. 

We obtained lodgings in a log house, large for 
Circle City, since it contained two rooms. It 
was already occupied by two customhouse of- 
ficers, the only representatives of Uncle Sam 
whom we encountered in the whole region. One 
room had been used as a storeroom and carpenter- 
shop, and here, on the shavings, we spread out 
our blankets and made ourselves at home. 

The building had first been built as a church 
by missionaries, but as they were absent for some 
time after its completion, one room was fitted up 
with a bar by a newly arrived enterprising liquor- 
dealer, till the officers, armed in their turn Avith 
the full sanction of the church, turned the building 
into a custondiouse and hoisted the American 
flag, on a pole fashioned out of a slim spruce by 
the customs officer himself. The officers, when 
we came there, were sleeping days and working 
nights on the trail of some whisky smugglers who 
'were in the habit of bringing liquor down the 
river from Canadian territory, in defiance of the 
American laws. 

There were only a few hundred men in Circle 



164 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

City at this time, most of the miners being 
away at the diggings, for this was one of the 
busiest times of the year. These diggings were 
sixty miles from the camp, and were only to 
be reached by a foot trail which led through 
wood and swamp. Several newcomers in the 
country were camped around the post, waiting 
for cooler weather before starting out on the trail, 
for the mosquitoes, they said, were frightful. It 
was said that nobody had been on the trail for 
two weeks, on this account, and blood-curdling 
stories were told of the torments of some that 
had dared to try, and how strong men had sat 
down on the trail to sob, quite unable to with- 
stand the pest. However, we had seen mos- 
quitoes before, and the next morning struck out 
for the trail. 

It was called a -wagon road, the brush and 
trees having been cut out sufficiently wide for a 
wagon to pass ; taken as a footpath, however, it 
was just fair. The mosquitoes were actually in 
clouds ; they were of enormous size, and had 
vigorous appetites. It was hot, too, so that their 
bites smarted worse than usual. The twelve 
miles, which the trail as far as the crossing of 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 



165 



Birch Creek had been said to be, lengthened out 
into an actual fifteen, over low rolling country, 
till we descended a sharp bluff to the stream. 
Here a hail brought a boatman across to ferry us 
to the other side, where there stood two low log 




On the Tramp Agaix. 



houses facing one another, and connected over- 
head by their projecting log roofs. 

This was the Twelve Mile Cache, a road-house 
for miners, and here we spent the night. Each 
of the buildings contained but a single room, one 
house being used as a sleeping apartment, the 
other as kitchen and dining-room. The host had 



IGG THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

no chairs to offer us, but only long benches ; and 
there were boxes and stumps for those avIio 
could not find room on the benches, which were 
shorter than the tables. We ate out of tin 
dishes and had only the regulation bacon, beans 
and apple-sauce, yet it was with a curious feeling 
that we sat down to the meal and got up from it, 
as if we were enjoying a little bit of luxury — for 
so it seemed to us then. There were eleven of us 
who slept in the building which had been set 
apart for sleeping ; we all provided our own 
blankets and slept on the floor, which was no 
other than the earth, and was so full of humps 
and hollows, and projecting sharp sticks where 
saplings had been cut off, that one or the other 
of the compan}^ was in misery nearly all night, and 
roused the others with his cursings and growling. 
The eight who were not of our party were min- 
ers returning from the diggings with their sea- 
son's earnings of gold in the packs strap})ed to 
their backs ; they all carried big revolvers and 
were on the lookout for possible highwaymen. 

On getting up we washed in the stream, ate 
breakfast, and prepared to start out again. In 
the fine, bright morning light we noticed a sign 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 167 

nailed ii}) on the dining cabin, wliich we had not 
seen in the dusk of the preceding evening. It 
was a notice to thieves, and a specimen of min- 
ers' law in this rough country. 

NOTICE. 
To AViiOM IT MAY Concern. 

At a general meeting of miners held in Circle 
City it loas the unamnious Verdict that all thiev- 
ing and stecding shall he punished hy Whipping 
AT THE Post and Banishment from the 
Country, the severity of the whipping and the 
guilt of the accused to he determined hy the Jury. 
So All Thieves Beware. 

Our packs were about twenty-five pounds each, 
and contained blankets, a little corned beef and 
crackers, and a few other necessities : they were 
heavy enough before the day was over. From 
Twelve Mile Cache to the diggings we travelled 
over what was called the Hog'em trail, since it 
led to the gulch of that name : it ran for the 
whole distance through a swamp, and was said 
to be a very good trail in winter — in summer it 
was vile. We had been informed of a way 



168 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

which branched off from the Plog'em route and 
ran over drier ground to a road- house called the 
"Central House," but we were unable to pick up 
this ; and we discovered afterwards that it liad 
been blazed from the Central House, but that 
the blazing had been discontinued two or three 
miles before reaching the junction of the Hog-'em 
trail, the axe-man having got tired, or having 
gone home for his dinner and forgotten to come 
back. So people like ourselves, starting for the 
diggings, invariably followed the Hog'em trail, 
whether they would or not, and those coming 
out of the diggings and returning by way of the 
Central House, followed the blazes through the 
woods till they stopped, and then Avandered 
ahead blindly, often getting lost. 

The Hog'em trail Avas a continuous bed of 
black, soft, stinking, sticky mud, for it had been 
well travelled over. At times there was thick 
moss ; and again broad pools of water of un- 
certain depth, with mud bottoms, to be waded 
through ; and long stretches covered with " nig- 
ger-heads." We walked twelve miles of this 
trail without stopping or eating, for the mosqui- 
toes were bloodthirsty, and even hunger can 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 169 

hardly tempt a man to bestride a "• nigger-head " 
and lunch under such conditions. We arrived at 
night at what was called the "Jump-Off," — a 
sharp descent which succeeded a gradual rise — 
where we found two sturdy men, both old guides 
from the Adirondacks, engaged in felling the 
trees which grew on the margin of the stream, and 
piling them into a log house. This they intended 
to use as a road-house, for the travel here was 
considerable, especially in the Avinter. In the 
meantime they were living in a tent, yet main- 
tained a sort of hostelry for travellers, in that 
they dispensed meals to them. As soon as they 
were through with the big log they were getting 
into place when we arrived, they built a fire on 
the ground and cooked supper, after which we 
were invited to spread our Ijlankets, with the 
stars and the grey sky for a shelter. They made 
some apologies at not being able to offer us a tent 
— theirs was a tiny affair, — and promised better 
accommodations if we would come back a 
month from then, when the cabin would be 
finished and the chinks neatly plugged with muck 
and moss. 

The next day's journey was again twelve 



170 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

miles, over about the same kind of trail. Cross- 
ing a sluggish stream which was being converted 
into a swamp by encroaching vegetation, we 
were obliged to wade nearly waist deep, and then 
our feet rested on such oozy and sinking nmd that 
we did not know but the next moment we might 
disappear from sight entirely. Further on, the 
trail ran fair into a small lake, whose shores we 
had to skirt. There was no trail around, but much 
burnt and felled timber lay everywhere, and 
climbing over this, balancing our packs in the 
meantime, was " such fun." Sometimes we would 
jump down from a high log, and, slipping a little, 
our packs would turn us around in the air, and 
we would fall on our backs, sprawling like turtles, 
and often unable to get out of our awkward posi- 
tion without hel}) from our comrades. 

Reedy lakes such as this, fringed with moss 
and coarse grass, witli stunted spruce a little dis- 
tance away, are common through this swampy 
country, and have something of the picturesque 
about them. The surrounding vegetation is very 
abundant. Excellent cranberries are found, bright 
red in color and small in size ; and on a little 
drier ground blue-berries flourish. Raspberries 



172 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

of good size, although borne on bushes usually 
not more than two or three Inches high, are also 
here ; and red and black currants. 

At the end of the second day we arrived at 
Hog'em Junction, where the Hog'em trail unites 
with that leading off to the other gulches where 
gold is found. Here was the largest road-house 
we had seen. There were fifteen or twenty men 
hanging about, mostly miners returning or going 
to the diggings, and a professional hunter — a sort 
of wild man, who told thrilling stories of fight- 
ing bears. 

One of the structures we saw here was called 
the dog-corral and was a big enclosure Ijuilt of 
logs. Dogs were used to carry most of the pro- 
visions to the Birch Creek diggings from Circle 
City, freighting beginning as soon as the snow 
fell and everything froze hard. There w^as a 
pack of these animals around the inn — a sneak- 
ing, cringing, hungry lot, rarely barking at in- 
truders or strangers, and easily cowed by a man, 
but very prone to fight among themselves. They 
were all Indian dogs, and were of two varieties; 
one long-haired, called Mahlemut, from the fact 
that its home is among the Mahlemut Eskimo of 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 173 

the lower Yukon ; the other short-haired, and 
stouter. Both breeds are of large size, and a 
good dog is capable of pulling as much as 400 
pounds on a sleigh, when the snow is very good, 
and the weather not too cold. The dog-corral is 
used to put the sleighs in when the freighter ar- 
rives, and the dogs are left outside, to keep them 
away from the provisions. The winter price for 
freight from Circle City was seven cents per 
pound ; in summer it was forty. 

We ate breakfast and supper at Hog'em Junc- 
tion, paying a dollar apiece for the meals ; and 
when we learned that the bacon which was 
served to us had cost sixty-five cents a pound, the 
charge did not seem too much. No good bacon 
was to be had, that which we ate being decidedly 
strong ; and even this kind had to be hunted after 
at this time of the j^ear. Xot only was food 
very high in the diggings, but it could not al- 
ways be bought, so that in the winter, when 
freighting was cheap, enough could not often be 
obtained to last through the next summer, and 
the miners had to wait for the steamer to come 
up the Yukon. The Hog'em Junction innkeeper 
paid twenty dollars for a case of evaporated fruit, 



174 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

such as cost a dollar in San Francisco ; condensed 
milk was one dollar a can, and sugar eighty-five 
cents a pound. The previous winter Ijeans 
brought one dollar a ])ound, and butter two and 
a half dollars a roll. In summer all prices were 
those of Circle City, plus forty cents freighting, 
plus ten cents handling. So a sack of potatoes, 
which I was told would cost twenty-five cents in 
the state of Washington, cost here eighty-five 
dollars. Even in Circle City the prices, though 
comparatively low, were not exactly what peo- 
ple would expect at a bargain counter in one of 
our cities. Winchester rifles were sold for fifty 
dollars apiece, and calico brought fifty cents a 
yard. Luckily there were few women folks in 
the country at that time ! 

Of the Hog'em Junction Inn I have little dis- 
tinct recollection except concerning the meals. 
We were so hungr}^ when we reached there that 
the food question was indelibly branded on our 
memory. For the rest I remember that when 
supper \vas cleared awaj^ the guests wrapped 
themselves in their ]n*ivate blankets and lay 
down anywhere they thought best. There was 
a log outhouse with some rude bunks filled 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 175 

Avitli straw, for those who preferred, so in a 
short time we were stowed away with truly 
mediEeval simplicity, to sleep heavily until the 
summons came to breakfast, — for there were no 
" hotel hours " for lazy guests at this inn, and he 
who did not turn out for a seven o'clock break- 
fast could go without. 

We three separated on leaving here, each 
taking a different trail, so tliat we might see ail 
of the gulches in a short space of time. I shoul- 
dered my blankets and after a seven mile tramp 
through the brush came to the foot of Ilog'em 
Gulch, which was in a deep valley in the hills 
that now rose above the plain. This gulch de- 
rived its name from the fact that its discoverer 
tried to hog all the claims for himself, taking up 
some for his wife, his wife's brother, his brother, 
and the niece of his wife's particular friend ; 
even, it is said, inventing fictitious personages 
that he might stake out claims for them. The 
other miners disappointed him in his schemes for 
gain, and they contemptuously called the creek 
" Hog'em." Afterwards a faction of the claim- 
owners proposed to change the name to Dead- 
wood, claiming that it sounded better and was 



176 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

also appropriate, inasmuch as they had got that 
variety of timber on the schemer. It was some- 
what unkindly asserted, however, by those who 
were not residents of the gulch, that the hrst 
name was always the most ap})ropriate, since the 
spirit of the discoverer seemed to have gone 
down to his successors. 

Be that as it may, I noticed a remarkable dif- 
ference between the men whom I found Avorking 
their claims along the creek and the miners of 
Forty Mile. Nobody showed the slightest hos- 
pitality or friendliness, except one man on the 
lower creek, who invited me to share his little 
tent at night. He had not enough blankets to 
keep him warm, so I added mine, and beneath 
them both we two slept very comfortably. In 
the morning he cooked a very simple meal over 
a tiny fire outside of the tent — wood was scarce 
along here — and invited me, with little talk, to 
partake of it with him. He Avas evidently far 
from happy in this cheerless existence ; he was 
working for wages, which, to be sure, were ten 
dollars a day, but with provisions as high as they 
were this w^as nothing much, and the work was 
so hard that, great stalwart man as he was, he 



178 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

had lost thirty pounds since he had begun. He 
would have liked to return to the States, for he 
was somewhat discouraged, but he could not 
save enough money to })ay for the expensive 
passage out. I hope he has struck it rich since 
then and brought back to his wife and babies the 
fortune he went to seek ! 

After I left this silent man, I found none who 
showed much interest. Some of thein were a 
little curious as to what I was doing, but most 
of them Avere fiercely and feverishly working to 
make the most of the hours and weeks which 
remained of the mining season ; the run of gold 
was ordinarily very good, and all were anxious 
to make as good a final clean-up as possible. At 
dinner-time everybody rushed to their meal, and 
I sat down by the side of the trail, ate stale 
corned beef, broken crackers, and drank the 
creek water. When I was half-way through I 
observed two young men in a tent munching 
their meal, but watching me ; and a sort of 
righteous indignation came upon me, as must 
always seize the poor when he beholds the abun- 
dance of the rich man's taljle. I walked into the 
tent and asked for a share of tlieir dinner. They 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 179 

gave me a place, but so surlily that I said hotly, 
" See here, I'll pay you for this dinner, so don't 
be so stingy about it." The offer to pay was an 
insult to the miner's tradition and one of them 
growled out, 

" None of that kind of talk, d'ye hear ? You're 
welcome to whatever we've got, and don't yer 
forget it ! Only there's been a good many bums 
along here lately, and we was getting tired of 
them." 

After this they were pleasanter, although I 
could not help reflecting that I was actually a 
bum, as they put it, and mentally pitied the pro- 
fessional tramp, if his evil destiny should ever 
lead him into the Yukon country. 

As it grew near nightfall I climbed out of the 
gulch, and, crossing the ridge, dropped down 
into Greenhorn Gulcii, which, with its neighbor 
Tinhorn Gulch, form depressions parallel to 
Hog'em. There was only one claim working 
here, and on this the supply of w^ater was so 
scarce that not much washing could be done. 
The people seemed like those of Hog'em Gulch, 
and took little notice of strangers. Having 
learned a new code of manners on Birch Creek, 



180 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

however, I walked into the cabin where one of 
the claim owners was getting supper. He was 
a short, powerful, fierce-eyed man, who never 
smiled, and spoke with an almost frenzied ear- 
nestness. He did not speak for some time, how- 
ever, but glared suspiciously when I walked in. 
I looked at him without nodding, took off my 
pack and put it in the corner, sat down on 
a stool and fished my pipe out of my pocket. 
He glared until he was tired, and then said : 
"Hallo!" 

" Hallo," I returned, and drawing up to the 
table, began working with my specimens and 
notebook. Looking up and finding him still re- 
garding me, I continued : " How's the claim 
turning out ? " 

"Pretty fair!" he growled. "What in h — 1 
are yo^i reportin' for ? " " Uncle Sam," I replied. 
He w^as from the moonshine district of Tennessee, 
and this was no recommendation to him, so he 
kept his eye on me. Presently his " pardner " 
came in and looked at me inquiringly. I spoke 
to him quite warmly, as if I was welcoming him 
to the cal)in. Soon supper was ready, and the 
fierce-e3"ed moonshiner looked at me four or five 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 181 

times, then said, beckoning me to the table : 
"Set up." 

After supper the two men crawled into their 
bunks ; I spread my blankets on the floor. The 
Tennessee man poked his head out. 

" Goin' to sleep on the floor ? " he asked. 

" Yes," answered I. He crawled out and pulled 
a caribou hide from the rafters above. 

" Lay on that," he said. 

When I thanked him, he looked at me suspi- 
ciously. 

In the morning I sat down to breakfast with- 
out being asked, and ate enormously and silently. 
The moonshiner warmed up at this. 

" You're a better sort of feller than I thought 
at first," he said ; " I thought you was goin' to 
be one of them d — d polite fellers." 

" Me ? Oh, no ; not me," I replied, " you're 
thinkin' of some one else, I reckon?" 

After breakfast he showed me his gold dust ; 
a little flat piece interested me, and I said, 
"Gimme that, I'll pay yer ; what's it worth?" 

"Nothin'," he replied. "Yer can take it." 

Afterwards I shouldered my pack and made 
for the door; when I got there I stopped 



1H2 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

and looked over my shoulder and said, " So 
long ! " 

" So long- to you ! " he answered, looking after 
me with more human interest than I had pre- 
viously seen in him. " Stoj) here when 3'ou come 
this way again." 

I climbed out of the gulch and walked along 
the mountain ridge for a while, encountei-ing, 
whenever there was no wind, swarms of the tiny 
gnats which the miners often dread worse than 
the mosquitoes. They are so numerous as actu- 
ally to obscure the sun in places and they fill 
nose, ears, and eyes ; there is no escape from 
them, for they are so small that they go through 
the meshes of a mosquito net with the greatest 
ease. On top of the ridge, where the wind blew, 
they disappeared. As I walked along here I 
met a prospector, and after a friendly talk with 
him, droi)})ed down another mountain-side to the 
bed of Independence Creek, and followed that to 
the junction of Mammoth Ch-eek, so called from 
the number of bones of the extinct elephant, or 
mammoth, which are buried there. AVading 
across a swamp, I found in the brush another 
road-house, the Mammoth Junction. This was a 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 183 

large log building containing a single room, 
which served as kitchen, dining-room, parlor, 
general bedroom, and barroom. At first I was 
the only guest, but afterwards a prospector ar- 
rived from a hard trip to the Tanana, and he 
related his experiences ; how he had shot three 
bears, seven caribon, and a moose in seven days, 
lie was a tall, well-built Cape Bretoner, Dick 
McDonald by name. When he got tired of 
talking I spread my blankets on the floor (for 
which privilege I paid fifty cents) and gladly 
stowed myself away for the night. 

The next day a tramp of seventeen miles 
brought me to the Central House, on the way 
home from the diggings ; for although our ren- 
dezvous should have been at Mammoth Junction, 
yet I concluded to wait for the others at Circle 
City. The trail was very bad, and during the 
first part of the journey the gnats were as annoy- 
ing as they had been on the mountains the day 
before. There were millions of them. During 
the last part the mosquitoes got the upper hand, 
and gave me the strictest attention. 

"Ah," I soliloquized, perspiring freely and 
tugging at my pack straps like a jaded horse at 



184 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

his harness, " the trials of an Alaskan pioneer ! 
Stumbling and staggering through mud knee- 
deep, and through nigger-heads, wading streams, 
fighting gnats and mosquitoes, suffering often 
from hunger and thirst, and rolling into one's 
sole pair of blankets under the frosty stars or the 
ridn-clouds ! " 

When my views were thus gloomy, a smell 
of smoke came to my nostrils, and crossing a 
little stream on a fallen tree, I came to the 
friendly inn I was seeking. 

The next morning, at five o'clock by my 
watch and eight by the host's, (it is unneces- 
sary to observe that there was no standard time 
used in the Birch Creek district) I started for 
Twelve Mile Cache. The first part of the trail 
was fairly well worn, but was covered with small 
dead trees which had fallen across it, necessitating 
the continual lifting of the feet and the taking of 
irregular steps. Ten miles of this was enough to 
make one very Aveary. I lunched on my stale 
corned beef and cracker crumbs, and drank from 
a little creek that I crossed. Soon after this, 
I came to a place where a newly blazed trail, 
leading to the Twelve Mile Cache, diverged from 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 185 

the older path, which ran up over the mountains. 
Deciding to take the newer route, I found it very 
iiard walking, especiall}^ as my feet were clad in 
the Eskimo sealskin boot, or makalok, which are 
soft and offer little protection. Much of the road 
lay among immense untrodden nigger-heads and 
in swampy brush, where the sticks which had 
been cut off in making the trail stuck up three 
or four inches above the ground, just convenient 
for stubbing the toe ; and yet the long grass quite 
concealed them, so they could not be avoided. 
Afterwards the trail struck into an old winter 
sleighing road, and I got on more rapidly for a 
few miles ; but the mosquitoes had increased to 
legions and stung painfully. The gnats and flies 
Avere also numerous, the big deer flies bitino- mv 
ears where the mosquito netting rested on them, 
till they were bloody. 

At about four o'clock the cut trail came to an 
end, and here was a stick pointing into the 
woods, inscribed : 

"FOLLER THES BLAIES TO TWELV MiLL 

House. Six Mills to Twelv Mill House 9 
Mills Central House." 

The "blaies " (blazes) had been newly cut, and 



lrt(J THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

as I started to follow them, it seemed that they 
led through the thickest of the l)i'ush, where it 
was almost impossible to tight one's way, espe- 
cially with a pack, which protrudes on both 
sides of the shoulders, and which often wedges 
one firmly between two saplings. Soon the 
blazes grew further and further apart ; after 
leaving one it often took ten minutes to find the 
next, scouting around everywhere in the tangle 
of bushes. The mosquitoes ke})t up their attacks, 
and my head began to ache s})littingly, partly 
from their bites and i)artly from the jerking 
of the head strap of my pack in my struggles 
through the brush. 

At last in despair I abandoned the attempt to 
follow the blazes, and turning s(]uare away from 
them, struck off in the direction where I knew 
the Hog'em Junction trail, l)y which we had 
reached the diggings, must lie, steering by my 
compass. Very soon I found better walking, 
— comparatively open swampy })atches, with alder 
thickets between — and in half a mile I cut into 
the trail I was seeking. Three miles of this trail 
brought me to Twelve Mile Cache, after one of 
the hardest days I had had in Alaska. Compared 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 187 

with such a trip as this the dreaded Chilkoot Pass 
was not so formidable, after all. The entire 
distance I had travelled was twenty-seven miles. 
I had counted my paces through it all, and they 
tallied with the count of my companions, who 
came on later. 

For supper at Twelve Mile Cache we had fresh 
lish, — pike and Arctic trout — taken from a trap 
in the river, and fresh vegetables raised on the 
roof, which was covered with a luxuriant gar- 
den. A thick layer of rich loam had been put 
on, and the seed dropped into this throve amaz- 
ingly, for the fires inside the cabin supplied 
warmth, and the plants did not have to fight 
against the eternal frost which lies everywhere 
a short distance below the surface. The long 
glorious sunshine of the northern summer did the 
rest, and splendid potatoes, rutabagas, cabbages, 
beets, and lettuce were the results. 

The fifteen miles back to Circle City the next 
tlay was a very weary walk, for my overwork on 
the da}^ before had left me tired out. The mos- 
quitoes were maddening on the last part of the 
trail, in spite of gloves and veil. On getting into 
Circle City, however, T was kindly welcomed by 



188 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

my friends, the customs officers, and given a 
square meal. The room we had occupied as a 
bedroom had, in the short time since we had left, 
been put to still other uses. A newly arrived 
physician was using it for a laboratory, and a 
man who had brought a scow load of merchandise 
down the Yukon was storing his stuff in the same 
room. Also a red-sweatered young man turned 
up who said he had been told to sleep here, but 
the customs officers kicked him out and he went 
and slept under an upturned boat on the bank. 
After a bath I felt refreshed, but glancing into a 
looking-glass for the lirst time for many a day, 
I saw that my appearance Avas still against me, 
I was along-haired, bushy-bearded, ragged, belted 
and knifed wild man, not fair to look upon. 

I spent the next day in wandering around town 
in a desultory fashion, and on returning to the 
customhouse found the door locked. When I 
knocked I was challenged and then cautiously 
admitted : on entering I was surprised to see the 
officers with their rifles ready for use alongside 
of them. Ross lifted up the strip of calico which 
formed a curtain hiding the space under the bed 
and disclosed two good-sized kegs. These he told 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 189 

me he and Wendling (the other officer) had seized 
while we were away. It was, and is, entirely il- 
legal to bring liquor into the territory of Alaska, 
and this law and its attendant features have 
brought about much of the dishonesty and cor- 
ruption which have made the inside history of 
Alaskan government since its acquisition by 
Americans such a dismal one. 

In Circle City liquor was freely brought down 
the river from the British side of the boundary. 
The first customs inspector was said to have been 
a notorious rascal, who had not only winked at 
the bringing in of liquor, but had taken a hand 
in the trade himself. The present representa- 
tives of the government, however, seemed to 
wish to do their duty, and their watching nights 
and sleeping days had finally resulted in their 
trapping the smugglers as they were landing, and 
they had captured the whisky and had brought 
it to the customhouse, where the whole camp 
knew it to be. The whole camp was interested 
in it, moreover, for it had been whisky-dry ; and 
the feeling towards the officers was probably 
none of the best in any quarter, although most 
recognized that they were simply doing their 



190 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS 

duty. At the enormously high prices which 
prevailed, these two kegs were worth several 
thousand dollars, and so were valuable boot3^ 
Therefore, a })lot had been hatched to recover 
the liquor, and this plot had come to the 
officers' ears a few hours before the coup was to 




Custom House at Circle City. 

have taken place. Hence the caution and war- 
like preparations which greeted me. The men 
from whom the whisky had been taken were 
the leaders in the scheme, and they had also 
enlisted several miners, among them a gigantic 
fellow who called himself " Caribou Bill," and 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 191 

whom I had met on the trail to the diggings. 
Bill gave the thing away by going to a saloon- 
keeper and trying to borrow a second revolver 
— he already had one. On being questioned as 
to why he wanted it, he took the saloon-keeper 
into his confidence. The saloon-keeper told a 
friend of his, who being also a friend of one of 
the customs officers, cautioned him. 

Both of the officers advised me to go elsewhere 
till the trouble was over, but reflecting that I 
was their guest and so under obligations to them, 
and also that I was an officer of Uncle Sam, and 
was in duty bound to "uphold the government 
of the United States by land and sea, against 
foreign and domestic enemies" as had been 
specified in my oath of office, I decided to remain 
with them. Ross hunted up two of his old 
friends among the miners and told them he pro- 
posed to resist the attack till the last, and that if 
there should be any bloodshed he hoped the camp 
would treat him fairly, considering that he had 
simply been doing his duty. The miners offered 
to stay with us and help in the resistance, but as 
we knew their hearts were hardly in their offer 
of loyalty, we refused to let them stay. One of 



19-2 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

them, however, loaned his ritle to AVendliiig ; aiid 
as he went to get it, a couple of forms behind the 
house jumped up and ran away. The other 
miner, who had also gone out for a moment, re- 
turned with the news that he had seen four men 
skulking behind the bank which lay in front of 
the house. 

The })lan of the smugglers and their friends, 
as Ross had learned it, was to come to the door 
of the cabin and knock. When the officer went 
to the door to open it, he would be covered with 
a revolver, and the second officer with another, 
and the whisky would be rolled out and over the 
bank into a boat wdiich would convey it up the 
river into a new hiding-place. If the officers re- 
sisted they would be shot and the whisk}^ taken 
just the same. The plan we determined upon 
was to leave the door unlocked, so that when the 
expected knock should come we would not have 
to go to the door to open it, but would call out 
" Come in " without stirring. I had my post on 
a box near the wall directly opposite the door, 
while Ross sat in the darkness close by the win- 
dow, so that when the knocker should enter he 
would find the muzzles of repeating rifles levelled 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 193 

at liim from two opposite directions, and be 
invited to drop his tire-arms and surrender. 
Wendling was in the other room watching 
the second door and window, but we did not 
expect the attack to be made there, since the 
smugglers must know \QYy well that the whisky 
was in the oiRcers' living-room, where we 
were. 

Directly after we had taken our places a man 
came and stood twenty yards in front of the 
cabin in the dusk, and beckoned. Eoss went out 
to him, and a long talk ensued, which ended by 
the officer returning. He said that the man had 
told him that Ave were three against many, and 
that they were bound to get the whisky any- 
way, since it was theirs and they would light for 
it ; so if Ross would simply yield without fight- 
ing it would save us. At the same time they 
would be willing to pay him a nice little sum as 
a plaster wherewith to heal his wounded dignity. 
Ross had replied that they had mistaken their 
man ; whereupon he was informed that he must 
take the consequences. So he returned, and we 
waited with tense nerves, in momentary expecta- 
tion of an attack, our eyes strained, our fingers 



194 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

on the triggers of our cocked rifles, our ears lis- 
tening. 

After an hour or more had })assed, and no 
sound was heard, the suspense began to grow un- 
bearable. Koss whispered to me, " If them fel- 
lers are coming I wish they'd hurry up, and not 
keep us waiting here all night." Shortly after- 
wards Wendling, crawling cautiously and silently 
around in the other room, knocked down from 
some shelf on the wall a pile of tin pans, which 
made a terrific rattle and bang ; this upset our 
tightl3^-drawn nerves so that we laughed convul- 
sively, trying to choke down our merriment so 
that it could not be heard. Still no noise from 
the outside, save that once we heard coughing be- 
hind the logs at the back of the building. Ross, 
peering through the window, saw now^ and then 
a shadowy form creeping along the bank in 
front ; and AVendling, reconnoitring through the 
window in the other room, saw other figures 
passing around back of the house. And still no 
alarm. Sitting bolt upright on my box, I sud- 
denly caught my head, Avhich was in the act of 
falling forward — caught it with a jerk which 
brought my eyes wide open, and at the same time 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 195 

horror filled my soul — I was in danger of falling 
asleep ! This frightened me so that I kept awake 
easily after that. So we waited till the morning 
grey brightened in the sky, when finally Ross 
remarked : " Well, there's no more danger, 
and I'm tired enough to sleep," We rolled 
ourselves in our blankets and dropped asleep 
without a moment's delay, not waking until 
the day was late and Goodrich and Schrader, 
just returning from the diggings, pounded on 
the door and asked for admission and a bite to 
eat. 

Concerning the reasons why the raid was given 
up, there was much inner history that I never 
learned. I suspect that the miners who had of- 
fered to help us afterwards Avarned the smug- 
glers, telling them how well we were prepared, 
and that this kept them from carrying out their 
plans. 

The next night a grand ball was gotten up by 
the ladies of Circle City, and our bedroom in the 
customhouse — being one of the largest places 
available — ^was selected as the scene of the dance. 
I was requested to write the announcements 
of the ball, which I did, and stuck one up on 



196 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

each of the Companies' stores. They ran as 
follows : 

Social Dance. 

There tv'dl he a Social Dance 

given hy the ladies of Circle City 

Wednesday Eve. Aug. 19th, 

At the residence of Mr. George Ross. 

The supply of ice cream hrought up on the 

Arctic being exhausted.^ there will he 

no collation. 

No ruhher hoots alio toed on the floor. 

Dogs must he tied with rihhons in the anteroom. 

After the notices were posted, one of the cus- 
toms officers came to me in great perturbation 
concerning the regulation about rubber boots, 
saving that such a restriction would exclude many 
desirable and well-meaning gentlemen who would 
otherwise be able to attend. 

The shavings were swept out of the room and 
our beds and other stuff cleared out. AVax can- 
dles were cut up and rubbed on the floor, and by 
dusk everything was in readiness. One of the 
trading companies donated the candles, which 
were stuck up around the room to the extent 
of nearly a dozen, and furnished a l)rilliant 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 197 

illui]i illation. The services of a pock-marked 
vagabond who Avas employed around a saloon 
and dance-house was secured as director of the 
affair, and two miners just in from the gulches 
(they had taken only one change of clothes to 
the diggings and had not had time to change 
them after coming back before going to the 
dance, furnished the orchestra, playing very ac- 
ceptably on guitar and fiddle. The music was 
all classical, — Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay or the Irish 
washerwoman occupying most of the time. 
Each of the players was so enthusiastic in his art 
that he often entirely forgot his companion, and 
would be fiddling away at the closing spasms of 
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, with perspiring zeal, when 
his more rapid partner had finished this tune and 
was merrily galloping through 

" Wuz ye iver inside of an Irishman's shanty? 
Wicl salt an' peraties an' iverything planty, 
A three-legged stool an' a table to match, 
And the door of the shanty unlocks wid a latch ! " 

The pock-marked director yelled out ^^ Swing 
your pardners. Ladies to the left. Forward 
and back ! Allenian left ! etc.," loud above the 
squeak of the stringed instruments. The cou[)les 



198 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

gyrated in eccentric curves around in obedience 
to the cries ; the candles flickered in the draft 
from the open door ; and a row of miners too 
bashful to dance, or who could find no partners, 
sat on boxes close to the wall, hunched up their 
legs and spit tobacco- juice, until the middle 
of the floor was a sort of an island. In short, it 
was the most brilliant affair Circle City had ever 
witnessed ; even the Indians who crowded around 
the open door and peered in over one another's 
heads murmured in admiration, and all agreed 
that it was a "• ha'ioo time", which is equivalent 
to saying a rip-roaring time. This was not the 
flrst dance held in the camp. The small but 
powerful contingent of ladies of adventure held 
nightly dances, but this was the first where the 
ladies were respectable. 

AVe were hard put to it for finery. The dancer 
of our party, having, as we explained to him, to 
bear in a way the brunt of the social duties for 
us all, bought a new pair of blue overalls, much 
too large for him ; these he turned up at the bot- 
tom, and braced up mightily, so that they cov- 
ered many shortcomings ; then he bought a 
green and yellow abomination of a necktie, 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 199 

which had been designed to catch the heathen 
fancy of the natives, plastered his hair down, 
and worried the tangles out of his beard. After 
this he was the beau of the evening, the gayest 
of the gay, being snubbed by only one woman, 
and she of doubtful reputation, as we consolingly 
reminded him. 

The men in general wore the most varied 
costumes, high boots being the prevailing style, 
though even the rubber boots I had been so 
near forbidding Avere seen ; then one might 
notice the Indian moccasins, and the sealskin 
makalok, which had been brought up from the 
Eskimos on the lower Yukon. Flannel shirts 
without coat or vests were the rule, for the night 
was warm. Here and there was a corduroy 
coat, or a mackinaw checked with red and green 
squares four inches across, but the wearers of 
them suffered for their vanity. In striking and 
almost ridiculous contrast to this picturesque 
attire was the black cutaway suit and polished 
shoes of the baker who had just arrived on a 
Yukon steamer from St. Michael's. 

After midnight we had cake, which the ladies 
had brought with them, and considering the fact 



200 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

that they had so little material for cooking, the 
variety and excellence were remarkable. Under- 
neath the festive board which covered the bed 
still lay concealed the two kegs of whisky 
which we had watched over the night before. 
It was at a late hour (to adopt country newspa- 
per phraseology) that the company broke up, 
loud in their praises of the success of the fete, 
and returned to their respective homes. We 
then rolled our blankets out upon the waxed 
floor, and lay down for another night. 

The same day a river steamer had arrived in 
Circle City from the lower Yukon, bringing our 
trunks to us, which w^e had sent around by water 
from Seattle. These were well filled with a 
goodly outfit for the winter, for we had expected 
that our work would take us two seasons. We 
had, however, gotten on twice as well as we had 
expected, and already saw the end of our task 
ahead, so there was nothing to hinder us from 
going out this same fall. The freight on our 
three trunks from Seattle was one hundred and 
eighty dollars, and we did not feel justified in 
expending a like sum to carry them back. AVe 
therefore determined to sell our things, and the 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 201 

day after the party I wrote out notices announc- 
ing- an auction to be held in tlie room where we 
had danced. 

Wendling volunteered to act as auctioneer, 
provided he were allowed to work in as part of 
our effects several hundred pounds of tobacco 
which he had brought up as a speculation. At 
seven o'clock we started in, having borrowed a 
pair of gold-scales for the sake of transacting the 
financial part of the business, for almost the sole 
currency of the camp was gold dust. Not being 
ourselves accustomed to the delicate operation of 
weighing, we persuaded some of the miners to do 
it for us, so that there should be no question as 
to fairness. At eight the miners began leaving 
and we were told that a miners' meeting had 
been called, so we adjourned for an hour, and at- 
tended the gatherino'. 

The miners' meeting was the sole legislative, 
judiciary and executive body in these little re- 
publics. To settle any question w^hatever, any 
one had the right to call such a council, Avhich 
brought the issue to a summary close. This one 
was held in the open air close to the river bank 
in front of the Company's store. The miners 



202 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

flocked together and conversed in groups. Ko- 
body knew who had called the meeting or why ; 
but presently some grew impatient, remarking : 
" Let's have the meeting. Who's for chairman ? " 

One man answered : " What's the matter 
with Sandy Jim for chairman ? Here he is, just 
in from the diggings ! Come over here, Jim ! " 

" Second the motion, somebody. Any body 
object to Sandy Jim ? " said the first speaker. 
" Climb up on the box, Sandy, my boy." 

Sandy Jim was a slender, blonde young man 
with quiet manners, and a style of speech which 
told of a good education. He mounted the box 
in the centre of the crowd, and having thus ob- 
tained a commanding position, he began, with 
correct parliamentary methods, to bring about 
order. Having requested silence, he inquired 
who had called the meeting. A man who acted 
as town clerk or some similar officer in the 
miners' vague system of government, explained 
that he had issued the call, to inform the miners 
that some one had settled upon a piece of land 
that had been set aside for town purposes, and, 
in spite of warnings to the contrary, Avas pro- 
ceeding to erect a log house upon it ; and that 



THE BIRCH CREEK DIGGINGS. 203 

the tent temporarily occupied b}^ the individual 
mentioned Avas already pitched upon the lot. 
As an officer of the camp he had felt in duty 
bound to call a meeting and let the boys decide 
what was to be done. Instantly there was a rat- 
tle of contradictory suggestions, everybody ad- 
dressing everybody else, and forgetting to turn to 
the chairman. Finally a tall man with a heavy 
black beard mounted the box and addressed the 
meeting, arguing coldly and logically that the 
person had acted in defiance of the miners' meet- 
ing, which was the only law they had; and pro- 
posing that he be fined, and in case he resisted 
further, put in a boat and set floating down the 
Yukon. There was a general murmur of ap- 
proval, and the chairman, putting the question to 
a vote, found a fairly unanimous verdict in favor 
of the speaker's suggestion. 

" Before I appoint a committee," said the chair- 
man, " the meeting should know who the person 
is who has to be dealt with, and I will ask the 
gentleman who called the meeting to give the 
information." 

The clerk of the camp elbowed his way forward 
a little. " I've been trying to get a word in for 



204 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

a long time," he said. " I don't think we ought 
to be so hard in this case. You all know the 
person — it's Black Kitty. IShe's a woman, even 
if she is black and a tighter, and she's alone and 
Avorking for a living. I move we go it easy." 

Amid another buzz the tall bearded man got 
up and remarked: "That's dilferent. I don't 
think any one wanted to quarrel with a woman, 
and a black one at that." This was only his way 
of expressing it, for he certainly did not mean 
that he would rather have quarrelled with a white 
woman. "Anyhow, there's plenty of land for 
public purposes out there in the brush, and I 
move an amendment that we let Kitty alone ! " 

In defiance of all ])arliamentary usage, this 
amendment was accepted with a chorus of a})- 
prov.d by the crowd, which, satislied with itself, 
scattered almost before the chairman could make 
himself heard, sanctioning and proclaiming valid 
the last expression of opinion. 

Most of the miners returned to our cabin, 
where the auction began again, and lasted till 
twelve o'clock, by which time we had sold nearly 
everything we cared to, at prices a little above 
cost in Seattle. Wendling also succeeded in dis- 



THE BIRCH CBEEK DIGGINGS. 205 

posing of a hundred pounds of bis tobacco, put- 
ting up lots every now and tben. Some miners 
expressed surprise to Ross that we sbould use so 
much tobacco, and Ross winked and put his 
finger on his nose and said, " You don't know 
the inside, that's all. See that little feller over 
there ? " indicating me. " That little feller chews 
a pound a day. Yes, sir ! He eats it some- 
times." 

The next morning we weighed out our gold 
dust and found it some twenty-five dollars more 
tlian we had any record of, from which we 
inferred that the miners who had so kindly 
superintended the weighing of the various sums 
paid in had been a little generous, and al- 
ways given full weight. A¥hen we got to San 
Francisco, and presented our gold dust at the 
mint, where it was weighed accurately, we 
received several dollars more for it than we made 
it from our final weighing ; so it appears that the 
Yukon miner's currency is none of the most 
accurate. Stories were told around cam[), of 
barkeepers who panned the sawdust on their 
floor and made good wages at it ; and it was 
alleged that one had a strip of carpet on his 



206 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

counter, into which he let fall a trifle of gold 
dust every time he took a pinch for a drink of 
whisky, and at the end of the day, by taking up 
his carpet and shaking it, he had a nice little sura 
over his day's earnings. 



CHAPTEK yil. 

THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 

THE next day, the 21st of August, we loaded 
up the Skookura again, and dropped away 
from Circle City with the current. The cus- 
toms officers were short of rice, but they sent a 
pair of old slippers flying after us as we moved 
away ; and several of the ladies who had been at 
the dance stood on the bank and waved us adieu. 
Soon the river broadened out, with many chan- 
nels flowing amid a maze of low wooded islands. 
This was the beginning of the great Yukon 
Flats, which stretch in dreary monotony for so 
many miles below Circle City. 

The wind blew strong, with gusts of rain, in 
the morning, and increased to a gale which lasted 
nearly all day. The proper channel was difficult 
to determine, and we were often sucked into 
some little channel or slough (pronounced 
" sloo " ), only to find our way back again, after 
a long circuit, to the larger body of water, at a 

207 



208 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

place near where we bad left it. Ko hills were 
visible in any direction — nothing but the waste of 
waters, the sandspits, and the level wooded islands 
and banks. At night we reached Fort Yukon, a 
trading post, which is situated at the junction of 
the Porcupine with the Yukon ; we had made the 
distance from Circle City, estimated at about 
eighty miles, in sixteen hours. So beu'ilderiug 
are the various channels here that one would 
hardly suspect that any stream entered the 
Yukon, and the current is so varied and skiggish 
that one might easil}'^ attempt to ascend the 
Porcupine, having tbe impression that he was 
still descending the Yukon — a delusion that would 
be dispelled after the first few miles. 

Like other so-called " Forts " in the Alaskan 
country, Fort Yukon was simply a rough log 
building inhabited by one white man, who had 
a scanty stock of very poor provisions, such as 
flour and tea, to exchange for skins with the 
natives. Around the building the Indians had 
made their camp, as usual, a trading-post being 
always the nucleus of a dirty and foul-smelliug 
congregation of natives. From one Indian we 
bought a whitefish, and on his presenting it to us 



THE 3IYN00K CREEK DIGGINGS. 209 

whole, we motioned him to clean it ; he did so, 
laying the entrails carefully on a board. He 
wished tea in exchange for it, and not being 
experienced in native trading, we gave him what 
we afterwards learned was ten or twelve times 
the usual price. We had the best English break- 
fast tea, and he was at first doubtful at this, hav- 
ing seen only the cheap black tea always sold to 
the natives ; but he was vastly pleased at the 
quantity, and, laughing delightedly, proceeded to 
" treat " his friends on the occasion of his good 
fortune, by handing around the raw entrails of 
the fish, which they divided and ate without 
further ceremony. 

Not liking to sleep within reach of the Indian 
dogs, who are very dangerous enemies to one's 
bacon, we dropped down the river half a mile 
below the post and made camp in a spruce grove — 
a beautiful spot, cool, and free from mosquitoes. 

The next day we were still in the flats. There 
was a high wind blowing and the sky was spot- 
ted with curious clouds. Some were like cauli- 
flowers in form ; others were funnel-shaped ; and 
still others were dark, with long black tentacles 
of rain. Whenever these tentacles passed over 



210 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

the river in a direction against the current, an 
ugly chop sea was the result, and our boat, stout 
dory though she was, shipped water in some of 
these places. 

Floating down through the network of chan- 
nels we suddenly ran hard upon a sand-bar, 
and it took a couple of hours' work to get us 
off, for as soon as we were lodged the sand 
which the Yukon waters carry began settling 
round the boat and banking it in, making 
it the hardest work imaginable to move it. 
While we were tugging and groaning in our 
efforts, a steamer — the Arctic — came down the 
river behind us, and being steered by experienced 
Indian pilots, struck the right channel only a 
short distance from us and floated past trium- 
phantly. The deck was swarming with miners 
who were bound for St. Michael's, and they made 
many jocose remarks at our expense, offering to 
take word to our friends, and do other favors 
for us. We said nothing, though we fumed in- 
wardly. Finally we succeeded in getting free, 
and floated off. Some time afterwards we saw 
behind us what appeared to be the smoke of an- 
other steamer ; but when we stopped for lunch 



THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 211 

the craft caught up with us, and proved to be an 
ordinary open boat like our own, but with a 
Yukon stove made of sheet iron set up in it, 
whereon the solitary passenger cooked his dinner 
while he floated. 

In the afternoon we caught sight of a bona 
fide steamer ahead of us, and as we came stead- 
ily closer, it seemed as if she must be stopping ; 
soon we recognized the Arctic, and saw that the 
crew and all the passengers were laboring ex- 
citedly in many ways, trying to get the boat off 
the sand-bar on which she was stuck. We ran 
close by her, for there was water enough for our 
little boat, although the rapid deposit from the 
river had built up a bank to the surface of the 
water on one side of the steamer. We were 
sorry for these men, who were in a hurry to get 
to St. Michael's, and so on home; at the same 
time we could not resist the temptation to return 
to them their greetings of the morning, and 
offer to take letters to their friends. They did 
not seem to be so much amused at the joke as 
t\\ej had been in the morning — probably because 
they had heard it before. 

We were several days floating through this 



212 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

monotonous part of the river. There were al- 
ways the same banks of silt, from which poi'tions, 
undercut by the current, were continually crash- 
ing into the stream ; these were immediately 
taken up and hurried along- by the current to 
form part of the vast deposit of mud which the 
Yukon has built up at its mouth, and which lias 
filled up the Behring sea until it is shallow and 
dangerous. On the higher banks, which were 
forty feet or so above the river (it was then low 
water), spruce and other trees were growing, and 
as the soil Avhich bore them was undercut, they 
too dropped into the river and started on their 
long journey to the sea. Along the vast tundra 
at the Yukon mouth, and the treeless shores of 
the Behring sea, the natives depend entirely upon 
these wandered trees for their fuel. The quantity 
brought down every year is enormous, for the 
sti'eam is continually working its wa}^ sidewise, 
and cutting out fresh ground. 

Everywhere we noticed the effects of the ice 
which comes grinding down the river in the 
spring. The trees had been girdled by the ice 
and were dying, the underbrush cut down, the 
earth plowed up, and occasionall}'^ there were 



THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 



213 



piles of pebbles where a grounded cake bad 
melted and deposited its burden. 

We used to camp on the gravel bars mostly, to 
avoid the mosquitoes ; but every now and then a 
nio-ht was cool and even frosty, and the mosqui- 

c5 




Till; i;i;KAK-ri' 1)1' TiiK ill-: ox the Yukon 



toes and gnats, after starting in their assault, 
were gradually numbed, and their buzzing grew 
fainter and fainter till it disappeared. When we 
felt such nights coming on, we camped in the 
spruce groves on the higher banks, built roaring 
fires and sat by them comfortably and smoked, 



214 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

looking out on the smooth river with tlie dark 
even fringe of trees between it and the sky with 
its snapping stars ; and for the first time on our 
trip we began to have some of the i)leasures 
wliich usually come to the camper-out. 

We passed Indian hunting and fishing camps 
occasionally, and once a solitary white man en- 
gaged in cutting wood for the river steamers. 
The natives seemed always to have plenty to eat, 
and we frequently obtained from them, fish, 
duck, moose, and berries. As we passed a camp 
the inhabitants would put out in their tin}^ birch- 
bark canoes, if we did not stop ; and, overtaking 
us with ease, would hold up for purchase such 
articles as they had. The berries were in native 
dishes of hewn wood, or of birch-bark tied with 
wooden thongs, and were so quaint that we took 
them home as curiosities. 

After several days in the Flats, we saw — 
when the clouds lifted after a prolonged rain- 
storm — that the course of the river was ap- 
parently barred by low mountains, level-topped, 
with occasional higher peaks rising above the 
general level, but all with smooth and rounded 
outlines. As we drew nearer we saw a narrow 



THE MVNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 215 

valley cutting through the mountains, and into 
this the river ran. Just before entering, we 
found a trading post. Fort Hamlin bj name, and 
from the trader, who was the only white man 
here, we each bought a pair of Eskimo water- 
boots, made of the skin of the makalok or hair 
seal, soaked in oil. We had long ago worn out 
the most of our civilized foot-gear, and were 
obliged to adopt the native styles. These Eskimo 
boots often have soles of walrus, and yet they 
are too thin for walking over stones, so they are 
made very large, and dried grass is put into the 
bottom ; the foot, too, is wrapped in as many 
thicknesses of cloth or skins as possible, and thus 
is protected against bruises and against the cold 
of the severest winter weather. 

Leaving Fort Hamlin, we floated down through 
picturesque hills, on the sides of which the birch 
was beginning to yellow. Another day brought 
us to Mynook Creek, of which we had heard at 
Circle City as likely to be a good gold producer. 
At the mouth of the creek we found the tempo- 
rary camps of a fcAV prospectors, who were on 
their way up to stake out claims. There were 
also numerous Indians encamped in the vicinitj^ — 



21G THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

true savages, with very few words of English 
among them, "yes" "no" and "steamboat" 
making up ahnost their entire vocabuhiry. 

A sort of chief among them was a M3^noolv, a 
half-breed with more Indian than white in his fea- 
tures. It was after him that the creek had been 
named (or rather renamed, for it had formerly 
been known as the Klanakakat or Klanachargut, 
the native name) ; he had been the fii-st to discover 
gold, and was engaged in working a claim with 
ji crew of natives, notwithstanding the fact that 
Indians have, according to our somewhat peculiar 
laws, no legal right to stake mines. He was a 
good-looking fellow with a fair knowledge of 
English, wliich he was very proud to air, 
especially the " cuss-words," which he introduced 
into conversation very gravely and irrelevantly. 
He said when he got dust enough he was going 
to " San Francisco," that being to him a general 
name for the world of the white men. He had 
always hired natives to work his claims, although 
he admitted that they did not work nearl}" as 
well as white peoj^le ; they would labor only 
until they had a little money ahead, and then 
would (juit until it was all spent, although it 



THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 217 

might be the very busiest season ; and if per- 
chance a steamboat was reported on the river, 
the gang to a man would dro[) pick and shovel 
and trot down the trail to the mouth of the 
creek, there to stand open-eyed and open- 
mouthed, gazing at the smoking monster which 
held them with a fascination stronger than even 
Mynook's displeasure. 

We camped on the beach, and made prepara- 
tions the next morning to visit the diggings. We 
separated, as usual, each taking a different route, 
and each hiring an Indian to accompany him and 
carry his pack. The first Indian I hired had on 
a new gingham jumper, and a sly smile which 
gave an impression that his subsequent actions 
did not belie. He wanted to be paid before 
starting, and when this was refused said he was 
hungr}', and was so weak that he could not walk 
without food. So we administered to him a sub- 
stantial breakfast, after which he disappeared 
and never could be found again. Soon another 
Indian presented himself — a particularly Avicked 
looking fellow, with red bulging eyes that gave 
one a sort of shiver to look at him. He wanted 
to go with me, and I hired him, having no other 



218 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

choice. Then he too explained by gestures, that 
he was starving and must have some breakfast to 
keep him strong on his k^ng walk ; whereupon I 
explained, also by gestures, that the first Indian 
had gotten the second Indian's breakfast already, 
and that, having delivered the breakfast, the rest 
was no affair of mine (I having carried out my 
share of the transaction as was fitting), so that 
the only possible subject for discussion lay be- 
tween him and the first Indian. 

He seemed to be impressed with the logic of 
this, shouldered his pack and trotted off meekly 
enough. As we started, the smoke of a steam- 
boat became visible down the river ; the natives 
raised the excited cry of " shteemboot " and my 
guide show^ed signs of sitting down to wait for 
it to come and go before he should proceed with 
his journey. However, a few studiously stern 
looks, accompanied by prodding in his ribs Avith 
a stick, started him along the trail, to which he 
kept faithfully after that. This led through a 
thick growth of alder brush, across brooks, but 
always kept in the valle}^ of the main stream, 
on each side of which were hills with the bare 
rocks peering from among the yellowing foliage. 



THE 3IYN00K CREEK DIGGINGS. 219 

After three hours' tramp, we turned up a little 
side valley, and soon came upon a claim that Avas 
being worked by a number of miners. This was 
the only active one on this creek, and with the 
exception of Mynook's claim on another small 
branch, the only one being exploited on Mynook 
Creek as a whole. Several other men, however, 
had staked claims and were engaged in building 
log cabins, preparatory to the winter's pro- 
specting. 

Here I dismissed my Indian, telling him by 
signs to come back again on the next day. 
During the two days he and I were out to- 
gether, we did not utter an articulate sound in 
trying to communicate with one another. It 
was of no use, for he could not understand the 
English any better than I Yukon. So in this 
case I looked at him fixedly and silently, and 
pointed to the miner's cabin, laid my head on 
my hand and shut my eyes, signifying that I 
intended to sleep there. Then with my finger I 
followed in the sky the course the sun Avould take 
on the following day, halting at a point midway 
in the afternoon ; then, pointing to him, I imitated 
the motion of a man carrying a pack, and with a 



220 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

rapid movement of the finger indicated the trail 
baclv to the mouth of the creelv ; finally with a 
comprehensive gesture I gave him to understand 
that he might do as he pleased in the meantime. 
He disappeared immediately, coming back at 
night to beg for food from my hosts ; failing in 
that, he bivouacked at a camp-fire, with a few 
other Indians who were working on the creek, in 
front of the miner's log cabin, and before we 
were up in the morning had disappeared again. 
At exactly the appointed time the next day, 
however, he returned, ready for the harness, as 
red-eyed, dumb and vicious-looking as ever. 

The sign language of all these Yukon Indians 
is wonderfull}^ clever ; it is also very comj)licated, 
and I have seen two natives conversing fluently 
behind a trader's back, using their faces and 
hands in rapid movements which, however, con- 
veyed no idea to the uninitiated observer as to 
their meaning. Some of their signs which I 
have understood are remarkable for the clever 
selection of a distinguishing characteristic to des- 
ignate a given object. For example, a white 
man was expressed by stroking the chin as if it 
were bearded. In this wild country razors were 



THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 221 

unknown and even scissors a rarity, so that all 
white men wore thick and usually bushy beards, 
while the natives had very little or no hair on 
their faces. Since I wore spectacles, I was de- 
scribed in sign language first by a gesture of 
stroking the beard, which indicated that I was a 
white man, and then by bending the thumb and 
forefinger in a circle, and peering through this 
circle, thereby sufficiently identifying me among 
others. 

At the cabin where I spent the night was a 
man who had been on the exploring expedi- 
tion of Lieutenant Allen some years before, 
Avhen that young officer accomplished such 
a splendid journey under such great difficulties, 
through a barren and unknown country, ascend- 
ing the Copper Eiver, descending the Tanana, 
exploring the Koyukuk, and finally returning 
to St. MichaeFs by way of the Yukon. On 
learning that I was in the government serv- 
ice, this man insisted on my becoming his guest. 
He slept and ate in a little log cabin of his own, 
where he had a bed built of hewn wood, which 
was pretty exactly proportioned to his own 
length and breadth. By a little careful manipu- 



222 Til ROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

lation, however, we both managed to stretch out 
on it and as the night was frosty and our cover- 
ing none of the thickest, neither of us objected 
to the proximity of the other, although we were 
so crowded that when one turned over the other 
had to do so at the same time. In the mornino- 
my "pardner," as he might fitly be called, had a 
savory breakfast well under way when I opened 
my eyes. 

After our meal my host went to his work, 
while I undertook a journey a little further up 
the main stream to a tributary gulch. Here one 
man was engaged in prospecting — Oliver Miller, 
one of the remarkable prospectors of early Alas- 
kan times. He had been in this region many 
years already, always prospecting, often lucky in 
finding, but never resting or stopping to read 
the benefits of his discoveries, and always push- 
ing restlessly onwards towards new and unex- 
plored fields. In the earl}^ eighties he had been 
among the first who had come to the Forty Mile 
district from Stewart River and the other alfiu- 
ents of the Yukon above the international bound- 
ary. He discovered the creek still known by 
his name — Miller Creek, — which really lies at 



THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 223 

the headwaters of Sixty Mile Creek, but is sepa- 
rated only by a low dividing ridge from the 
gold-producing gulches at the head of Forty Mile 
Creek, and is therefore usually reckoned as a 
part of the Forty Mile district. 

Miller Creek was one of the richest creeks in 
the district and was soon staked out by eager 
prospectors ; but Miller himself got restless, and 
saying the place was getting too crowded for 
him, sold his claim one day for what he could 
get, and investing the amount in " grub " and out- 
lit, started out over the hills alone, prospecting. 
In the Birch Creek district, which was discovered 
later, he found gold again, but as soon as miners 
came in he sold out and went further. Now 
after many wanderings he was in Mynook Creek, 
and it was characteristic of the man that instead 
of being industriously engaged in washing gold 
in one of the already prospected tributaries 
nearer the Yukon, he had vanished into the 
brusli, out of reach of the sound of pick and 
shovel, and was nosing around among the rocks 
and panning gravel. 

According to directions, I left the trail, which 
indeed ran no further, and followed the bank of 



224 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

the main stream, working my way through the 
brush, till I came to a little brook, then went up 
along this nearly to where it emerged from a 
rocky gorge in the hills. At this point I came 
upon a grassy nook under the birches, where a 
fire was smouldering ; and under a tree a man's 
heavy blankets were spread on a bed of green 
boughs, as if he had just stepped out. A couple 
of kettles were standing near the fire, and a coat 
was lying on the ground, while an axe was stick- 
ing in the tree above the blankets. There was 
no tent or any superfluities whatever, and it was 
evident that this camping outfit was one of those 
which a man may take on his back and wander 
over hill and dale with. Not hearing or seeing 
any sign of life, I sat down and waited, but no 
one appearing after half an hour, I began follow- 
ing a man's trail from the camp up the gorge, 
tracing him by the bent grass and broken twigs. 
After having gone a short distance, I heard the 
thumping of a pick on a rocky wall in front and 
above me, and gave a hail. The prospector came 
down very slowly, his manner not being so much 
that of a man who was sorry to see one — on the 
contrary, he was pleasant and cordial — as that 



THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 225 

of one who is reluctantly dragged away from a 
favorite employment. We went back to his 
camp under the birches and as it was now noon 
he invited me to dinner with him. 

It was a sunny day, and the grass was warm 
and bright, with the shadow of the delicate leaves 
falling upon it ; the mosquitoes had disappeared 
in this period of frosty nights and chilly days, so 
that the sylvan camp was ideal. Some boiled 
beans, boiled dried apples, and bread, baked be- 
fore an open fire, constituted the meal ; yet I re- 
member to this day the flavor of each article, so 
delicious they appeared to my sharp appetite. 
Miller was embarrassed somewhat about dishes. 
He had by good luck two kettle covers, which 
served as plates for us, and he was, he explained, 
in the habit of using his sheath-knife to manage 
the rest, for he had neither table-knife, fork, nor 
spoon. I produced my own sheath-knife and as- 
sured him that I was born with it in my mouth, 
so to speak, and we set to eating cheerfully. 

For a professional recluse, I found Miller 
very cordial and communicative. He travelled 
alone, he told me, not because he would not 
have been glad of company, but because it was 



226 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

hard to find any one to go with him, and almost 
impossible that two "pardners," even when at 
first agreeable, should remain very long without 
quarrelling ; so he had decided, as the simplest 
solution, to carry out his ideas alone. He w^as 
in the habit of exploring the most remote parts 
of the territory, searching for minerals. He had 
tramped over the mountains between the Yukon 
and the Tanana, back and forth ; and had l)een 
a thousand miles up the Koyukuk, to where it 
headed in a high range, climbing which, he had 
looked out upon the Arctic ocean. On return- 
ing down the river, he had been knocked out of 
his boat by a "sweeper" (a log which extends 
out from a bank over a stream, two or three 
feet above the w^ater). The current w^as so 
rapid where he met wdth the accident that when 
he rose to the surface his boat w^as some dis- 
tance ahead of him. He struck out swimming 
to catch up wath it, but, as if animated with a 
perverse living spirit, the boat moved off on a 
swifter current toward the centre of the river. 
Soon he w^as in danger of being benumbed in 
the icy w^ater, and he w^as exhausted from his 
efforts, yet he knew if he should swim to the 



THE MYNOOK CREEK DIGGINGS. 227 

banks and lose his boat he would eventually per- 
ish in the wilderness, without resource and hun- 
dreds of miles from the nearest human being. 
So he swam desperately, and when on the point 
of giving up and sinking, a check in the current 
ahead slackened the speed of the boat so that by 
an effort he was able to reach it and grasp the 
gunwale. But it was some time before he 
gathered strength enough to pull himself aboard. 
The history of the prospectors in any new 
country, especially in Alaska, would be a record 
of intensely interesting pioneering. Unfortu- 
na^tely these men leave no record, and their hard- 
ships, lonely exploring tours and daring deeds, 
performed with a heroism so simple that it seems 
almost comical, have no chronicler. They pene- 
trate the deserts, they climb the mountains, they 
ascend the streams, they dare with the crudest 
preparation the severest danger of nature. Some 
of them die, others return to civilization and be- 
come sailors or car-conductors or janitors ; but 
they are of the stuff that keeps the nation alive. 
By that I do not mean the false or imitation 
prospector, who has no courage or patience, but 
only the greed of gold. Thousands of such 



228 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

poured into Alaska after tlie Klondike boom, and 
many of them turned back at the first sight of 
Chilkoot Pass, which is nothing to frighten a 
strong boy of twelve. Many more got enough 
of Alaska in floating down the Yukon, and kept 
on straight to St. Michael's, scarcely stopping in 
any of the mining regions ; thereby benefiting 
the transportation companies greatly, and add- 
ing much to the territory's sudden apparent 
prosperity. But before the Klondike rush nearly 
all the Alaskans were of the hardj^ true pioneer 
type I write about. 

In the afternoon I returned, and finding my In- 
dian punctually on hand at the appointed time, 
we went back to the Yukon together. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE LOWER YUKON. 

T^HE next day we broke camp, and floating 
* down the river, soon entered the main 
range of the Rampart Mountains. They were 
not high, but picturesque, and the lower parts 
and the valleys were gay with green and gold. 
It was a perfect day, cool and clear. We stopped 
for the night below the so-called rapids, which at 
this time of low water were hardly noticeable. 
An Indian came to our camp from his village 
across the river, and we traded a can of con- 
densed milk with him for a silver salmon. I got 
into his little narrow birch canoe, and managed 
to paddle it with the feather-like paddle, tlianks 
to my experience in rowing a racing-shell ; but 
it required infinite care in balancing. I could 
not help admiring the ease with which the In- 
dian managed the delicate boat when he left us 
for home again, and wondering how these people 
catch salmon out of canoes like these. 

229 



230 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

All this day and the next we passed many 
Indian villages, made up of white tents, with 
red dried salmon hung up on frames in front. 
Although these natives are classed as Indians, 
(belonging to the group of Athabascans) and 




A Yukon Canoi;. 



although they show certain traits of physi- 
ognomy like them, yet in their general nature 
they are entirely different. Unlike the stoical 
Sioux or Arapahoe of the United States, these 
people are childlike and open in their manners. 
They chatter freely in their own language, 
whether it is understood or not ; they are anx- 



THE LOWER YUKON. 



231 



ious to give and get information ; and they seize 
the slightest excuse for a joke to giggle con- 
vulsively. They are tine boatmen, and good 
hunters and fishermen. All along the river 
could be seen their traps of stakes, set in some 




Indian Fish-Traps. 



eddy near a bend of the river, and in the early 
frosty mornings the squaws ^vould come down 
to the traps in their canoes,— which are broader 
than those of the men, and managed by a wider 
paddle — propelling them swiftly and rhythmic- 
ally along, crooning a song. They are an in- 
telligent, good-humored people, already a little 



232 TIIROVan THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

spoiled ill their iiuiiiners and ideas by contact 
with wliites who were hartlly fitted to teacli the 
untutored savage. Yet they are on the whole 
far from disagreeable people to deal with, and 
although their habits did not always seem up to 
the civilized standard, yet in contrast to the 
Eskimos whom we saw further down the river, 
they were models of cleanliness. Thei'e is no 
lack of variety in their faces, and in one camp I 
saw a woman whose dark beauty would have 
ornamented the finest drawing-room. AVhether 
or not she had some share of white blood I do 
not know. 

These Indians, as a rule, have no chief, but 
live in the most complete independence, the only 
authority over them being that of the sJunnan or 
medicine man, who attains his ascendency by his 
cleverness in dujiing others to believe he has 
supernatural gifts, such as prophecy. It is the 
custom for any one who aspires to high position 
to make prediction as to the weather, when the 
next steamboat will arrive, and so on. When 
his predictions become true frequently, he grad- 
ually obtains influence. 

Great travellers are the Alaskan Indians too. 



THE LOWER YUKON. 233 

and at a trading post along this part of the 
Yukon one may see, besides the Yukon Indians, 
others from the Koyukuk, the Tanana, and even 
the Kuskokwim ; but one rarely sees Eskimos, 
who are not such great wanderers, and when 
they make voyages visit only the regions peo- 
pled by their own race. Those Indians who live 
on the flats of the river frequently go to the 
mountains a long distance off to hunt. Dr. Dall, 
in his " Alaska and its Resources," gives the 
following translation of a song which he heard 
a Koyukuk woman singing to her infant. 

"The. wind blows over the Yukon. 
My hiis))an(l hunts the deer on the Koyukun moun- 
tains. 
Ahn^i, Ahmi, sleep, little one. 

" There is no wood for the fire. 
The stone axe is broken, my husband carries the other. 
Where is the sun- warmth ? Hid in the dam of the 

beaver, waiting the springtime? 
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, wake not ! 

"Look not for ukali,' old woman. 
Long since the cache was emptied, and the crow 

does not light on the ridge-pole ! 
Long since my husband departed. Why does he 

wait on the mountains? 
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, softly. 

' Dried salmon. 



234 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

" Where is my ovvu ? 
Does he lie starving on the hillside ? Why does he 

linger ? 
Comes he not soon, I will seek him among the 

mountains. 
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, sleep. 

" The crow has come, laughing. 
His beak is red, his eyes glisten, the false one. 
' Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala the shaman. 
On the sharp mountain quietly lies your husband.' 
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, wake not. 

"Twenty deer's tongues tied to the pack on his 

shoulders ; 
Not a tongue in his mouth to call to his wife ^\■ith. 
Wolves, foxes, and ravens are tearing for morsels. 
Tough and hard are the sinews ; not so the child 

in your bosom. 
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, Avake not! 

"Over the mountain slowly staggers the hunter. 
Two bucks' thighs on his shoulders, with bladders 

of fat between them. 
Twenty deer's tongues in his belt. Go gather 

wood, old woman! 
Off flew the crow, — liar, cheat, and deceiver! 
Wake, little sleeper, wake, and call to your father! 

"He brings you back fat, marrow, and venison fresh 

from the mountains. 
Tired and worn, he has carved a toy of the deer's horn. 
While he was sitting and waiting long for the deer 

on the hillside. 
Wake, and see the crow, hiding himself from the 

arrow ! 
Wake, little one, wake, for here is your father." 



THE LOWER YUKON, 235 

Although we saw fish in front of all the tents 
and apparent contentment in every face, yet we 
were told that the catch had not been nearly so 
great as usual that summer, and that there must 
inevitably be much suffering during the Avinter. 
" Yes," said Mynook, at Mynook Creek, phil- 
osophically, "Goin' be hard winter; tink old 
people all die." We asked him why just the old 
people, and he explained that the old people had 
not been able to gather so much provisions as the 
young and vigorous ones, and would therefore 
sooner starve. We told him that in our country 
we cared for the old first, and he seemed to think 
such a custom very unjust, observing that the 
old who had lived should die if there was any 
famine, and make room for the younger ones 
who could live yet a long time if they could get 
food. It is starvation, one may add, which keeps 
the Indian population of the whole Alaskan 
interior within very meagre limits. 

On the 3d of September we came to the mouth 
of the Tanana, a large tributary which enters the 
Yukon on the left side ; the country around its 
mouth is low% and the river itself splits into 
many channels, forming a delta. On the bank 



236 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

of the Yukon opposite the mouth of the Tanana 
we found a trading post with two white men and 
a host of Indians. When we landed at the store 
we were met by the Indians, the white men 
having not yet observed us. The first was 
evidently a shaman or medicine man, a copper- 
colored old fellow with cross eyes and a cunning 
wrinkle around his mouth. He ceremoniously 
pulled off his buckskin gloves before offering his 
hand to shake ; then pointing his finger to the 
sky he began a long speech in his own language, 
with mau}^ gestures. We all listened very gravely, 
and when he got through and looked at me with 
an air of self-satisfaction and triumph, I jilaced 
both hands on my stomach, and rolled my eyes, 
then thumbed my nose at him, and finally began 
to quote to him the immortal soliloquy of Hamlet 
" To be or not to be," with much emphasis and 
many variations. Everj^body listened with evi- 
dent deliglit, especially the shaman, and when 
we were through they conducted us up to the 
trading post. An old fellow was smoking a 
curiously carved wooden pij^e, which filled the 
soul of one of our party with the desire to obtain 
it, since it seemed such a remarkable bit of native 



THE LOWER YUKON. 237 

work. He offered live dollars for it as a starter, 
and the old fellow, astounded but willing to 
accept the gifts of the gods without questioning, 
handed over the pipe with an alacrity that made 
Goodrich examine it a little more before parting 
with his money. On the bottom of the bowl 
was stamped in the wood " Smith & Co., New 
York," and on closer inspection it was evident 
that the apparent carving was in reality pressed, 
and that the pipe was worth in the neighborhood 
of twenty-live cents in the States. 

We were welcomed by the trader, and after a 
lunch with him floated down the river about 
eifi-ht miles to the mission below. There our 
eyes were delighted by a neat little building 
with a belfry and bell, and actually two dormer 
windows. It was the work of the pioneer Mike 
Hess, from whom the stream entering the Yukon 
above My nook creek had been named. The 
missionary was absent in a parochial call Ave 
hundred miles away, but his wife and child and a 
nurse were there. The missionary published 
the only paper on the Yukon at that time ; it 
appeared once a year, and consisted of four small 
pages, printed on a hand-press. The items were 



238 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

from all over the country, and many of them 
were very interesting and amusing. 

From here we kept on travelling with the 
current down the Yukon, helping our speed by 
continuous rowing. There being three of us, 
" tricks " of one hour were arranged, so each 
man steered for an hour, rowed an hour, and 
then sat in the stern for an hour, regarding the 
landscape and making notes. It grew so chilly 
that often the time for resting was hardest to 
endure, for the skin would cool and the teeth 
would chatter even with all the clothes we could 
get on, and we would be glad to get a little 
vigorous exercise again. Storms were frequent, 
and we often had the pleasure of sitting in the 
driving rain all day long. We covered over our 
outfit as well as we could and even rigged up a 
sort of awning of sail-cloth on a frame-work of 
boughs, which kept the rain off the steersman, 
while the man who was resting crawled under 
a tarpaulin, and the oarsman rowed and got wet ; 
so that under these conditions the position of 
steersman was most coveted. The wind blew 
with such violence that sometimes we took water 
over the bow and stern of our boat, and the 



THE LOWER YUKON. 



239 



steerman had to exert skill to keep from swamp- 
ing. When the weather was clear, however, it 
was cool, and we enjoyed life more at such times 
than we had before done. 

To wake up on a gloriously bright morning, in 




In a Text Beneath tiPiiUCE TiiEEb. 



a tent pitched beneath spruce trees, and to look 
out lazily and sleepily for a moment from the 
open side of the tent, across the dead camp-fire 
of the night before, to the river, where the light 
of morning rests and perhaps some early-rising 



240 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

native is gliding in Lis birch canoe ; to go to the 
river and freshen one's self with the cold water, 
and yell exultingly to the gulls and hell-divers, 
in the very joy of living ; or to wake at night, 
when you have rolled in your blankets in the 
frost-stricken dying grass without a tent, and to 
look up through the leaves above to the dark 
sky and the flashing stars, and hear far off the 
call of a night bird or the howl of a wolf : this 
is the poetry, the joy of a wild and roving ex- 
istence, which cannot come too often. No one 
need look for such moments during mosquito 
time in Alaska. But the pests were over now, 
and men and animals who had been fighting them 
all summer rested and drew deep draughts of 
peace, and strengthened themselves for the sting- 
ing cold of the winter, likewise hard on the 
temper and on the vital powers. 

In our downward journey we passed close by 
mountains whose tops were beginning to be 
snow-covered, and were higher than those of the 
Rampart Mountains, which we had crossed above 
the Tanana ; yet they Avere further from the 
river, with level country between. Leaving 
these behind we came to fiats similar to the 



THE LOWER YUKON. 241 

great Yukon flats above the Ramparts, but not 
so extensive. Here the river split into many 
channels, enclosing low green islands. The clay 
banks were fifty or a hundred feet high, and as 
we followed the current it took us against the 
side which it was engaged in cutting away. We 
had to avoid getting too close, for one never 
knew when a portion, undermined by the 
stream, would topple over with a tremendous 
splash ; and if such a mass should strike the boat 
it would bear it to the bottom of the river and 
bury it so deeply and easily that when the dust 
of the fall should clear away, the circles on the 
water would be as regular as usual. 

The banks showed on the upper parts, de- 
posits of black peat, twenty or thirty feet thick, 
and it was evident that the accumulations are 
going on at the surface yet. Alaska is, like 
other Arctic regions, densely covered with moss, 
which grows alike in the swamps and on the 
steep hillsides ; and the successive generations 
of mosses, one rearing itself on the remains 
of the others, bring about in time a deposit 
of peat which one can find nearly everywhere, 
if he digs down. It is well known that such 



242 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

vegetable accumulations, after having been trans- 
formed into peat, may by further change become 
a lignite or sort of brown coal, and when much 
altered by the heat or pressure attending the 
uneasy movement of the earth's crust may even 
become anthracite. In many regions the crust, 
apparently still, is in reality constantly moving, 
although so slowly that we do not notice it ; 
yet in the course of ages the most stupendous 
changes hav^e been brought about. We are ac- 
customed to picture coal as originating in trop- 
ical swamps of the carboniferous period, with 
enormous trees bearing leaves many feet long, 
and bullfrogs as big as men squatting in the 
background, while the air is so heavily laden 
with carbonic acid that it would put out a can- 
dle; but here, at the Arctic Circle, the formation 
of coal is evidently going on rapidly, and future 
generations may derive benefit from it. 

Beds of vegetable matter belonging to a past 
age are abundant all along the Yukon, but the 
coal is as yet only a black shiny lignite, for it has 
not been altered much ; and leaves found in it 
show that the vegetation of the period when the 
beds accumulated was not far different from 



THE LOWER YUKON. 243 

what it is to-day, and had nothing to do with 
gigantic tadpoles and malaria. 

One of the most interesting of the high clay 
bluffs which we passed lies on the left-hand side 
of the river, not far below the Tanana. It has 
been called by some early travellers the Palisades, 
and this name appears on the map, but the miners 
and traders know it by the name of the Bone- 
yard, from the fact thafthere are buried in the 
silts near the top (which is about two hundred 
feet high) many bones of large animals, which 
come down to the river as portions of the bluff 
are undermined and fall. We stopped at this 
place, and, slumping through the mud to the foot 
of the bluff, we came across the tusk of a mam- 
moth, which probably weighed over a hundred 
and fifty pounds. It was as thick as a man's leg 
at its larger end, but the whole of it w^as evi- 
dently not there. Further on we found a smaller 
tusk with the end worn off as if the animal had 
been using it severely for some purpose. After- 
wards we saw other bones,— leg bones, frag- 
ments of the backbone, etc.,— in great abundance. 
Our little boat was too small to carry these 
gigantic relics, but we preserved a huge molar 



244 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

tooth from a mammoth, measuring several inches 
across, and we sawed off portions of one of the 
tusks. 

The extinct hairy elephant, or mammoth, in- 
habited Alaska at a time previous to the memory 
of man, yet not very ancient, geologically speak- 
ing. Kemains of these animals are also abundant 
in Arctic America and Siberia. It was at first 
supposed that the climate was tropical when they 
existed, since it is well known that the elephant 
is a native of hot countries, and the bones are 
almost exactly like those of the elephants of the 
tropics. The discovery of some of these remains 
in the River Lena in Siberia was one of the most 
interesting of modern scientific events. From 
some reason or the other, many mammoth had 
been caught in the ice of the river and had been 
frozen in, the ice never melting through all the 
thousands of years that followed. So well pre- 
served were they at the time of their discovery 
that it is said they furnished food for dogs ; but 
what amazed scientists most was to find that 
this elephant was covered with very long hair or 
fur, forming a protection against the cold such 
as few creatures possess. The fur and much of 



THE LOWER YUKON. 245 

the skin of one of these mammoth may be seen 
in the museum at St. Petersburg. 

We know from geologic evidence that Akiska, 
firm and solid land though it appears to be, is 
really slowly rising out of the sea, and we also 
know that this rising motion has been going on 
for a very long time. At a period which nmst 
have been many hundred years ago, the country 
was covered with a multitude of shallow lakes, 
many of them large, and some of immense size — 
rivalling our Great Lakes of the St. Lawrence 
river system. Most of these lakes are now 
drained and we have, as records of them, only 
broad flats composed of fine clays and silts which 
accumulated as sediments in the lake bottoms. 
Through this vast lake region roamed the mam- 
moth in herds, and so far as we can tell the 
climate was much the same as it is now ; but 
with the elevation of the land and the draining 
of the lakes the mammoth has disappeared — the 
reason no one is al)le to tell. 

The Eskimos carve the mammoth tusks into 
ornaments, pipes, and other ivory articles. They 
are familiar, in fancy, with the animal, and 
have a special name for it, as well as for its 



246 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

ivory as distinguished from walrus ivory. They 
also have some vague legends about it, which 
the traveller may learn through an interpreter. 
At St. Michael's a Mahlemut Eskimo told me 
that a long time ago, when the whole coun- 
try was full of lakes and darker than it is 
now, these animals were alive, and in the time 
of their fathers they were said to still exist, far 
in the interior, on the shores of a great lake ; 
and that their fathers never went near this 
lake, hunting, for fear of this beast. It is more 
than likely, however, knowing what we do of 
the Eskimo habits and character, that this was 
simply fancy, which grew out of finding the 
tusks and the bones ; or an invention, gotten up 
to satisfy the white man's curiosity, for the 
Eskimo is so willing to please that he always 
tells exactly what he thinks will be appreciated, 
whether or not it is the truth. Moreover, so far 
as I have been able to judge from other things, 
the Eskimo tradition does not run nearly so far 
back as it needs must to extend to the time of the 
mammoth. 

Breaking camp one morning, just as the smoke 
was beginning to curl from the camp of our 



THE LOWER YUKON. 247 

Siwasli neighbors on the other bank of the river, 
we ran rapidly down stream, and by the early 
afternoon passed the mouth of the Koyukuk. 
This is a large stream of clear water contrasting 
sharply with the muddy roily waters of the 
Yukon, from wdiich it is separated almost by a 
distinct line. Above the rivers at the point of 
junction rises a beautiful sharp cliff, probably a 
thousand feet high and nearly perpendicular to 
the top. 

On reaching this place we were met by heavy 
winds which tossed the surface of the river into 
waves, and where it blew against the current 
made a chop sea, so that the Skookum took in a 
good deal of water. Soon we were unable to 
make any headway at all against the wind, so 
we landed, and tracking our boat along the bank 
till we came to a little "slough" or shallow 
side channel where the water, protected by trees 
which grew on both sides, was smooth, we made 
camp. It was a flat smooth place, and the ground 
was covered thickly with fuzzy bright green 
plants of the horse-tail family, which made every- 
thing look so downy that one felt like rolling in 
it. These beautiful plants are easily crushed un- 



248 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

der foot, and a little tramping around had the 
effect of pressing out the water with which the 
sand Avas filled, and transforming all into a very 
soft mud. We had to keep our heav}" boots on, 
therefore, especially around the fire, which is the 
most frequented spot in a pioneer's camp ; and 
finally we had to lay poles along the path be- 
tween the camp and the boat, to prevent slump- 
ing too deeply. To add to our discomforts, the 
rain came down in torrents that night, piercing 
our somewhat service-worn tent, so that by morn- 
ing most of our outfit, including Ijlankets, was 
more or less wet. 

Starting out again, we found, soon after leav- 
ino: our sheltered nook, that the wind was still 
blowing, and in stretches of the river where the 
wind was ahead we could move only very slowly, 
while on other curves we went at a high rate of 
s})eed. So we moved along by jerks till about 
noon, when we were l)rought to a standstill by 
an increase in the wind, and after an effort to 
proceed further, which resulted in our being 
blown back a little up the river, we landed, 
waited an hour and lunched ; after this, the wind 
having gone down somewhat, we proceeded. 



THE LOWER YUKON. 249 

We passed several native villages, both winter 
and summer camps, the former with their 
clumsily built log houses and attendant log 
caches, the latter with their Avhite tents and 
lines of fish drjang on frames in front. The in- 
habitants shouted out vociferous greetings to ns 
as we passed, which we did not understand ; but 
we responded quite as cordially in our own 
tongue. At about five o'clock we reached the 
native village of Nulato, one of the largest on 
the river, with a population of several hundred, 
and a small trading post, at that time kept by a 
half-breed trader. 

Our first question on landing was whether the 
steamer had passed down the Yukon for St. 
Michael's. This steamer would be the last which 
would make connections with Seattle or San 
Francisco, so if we missed it we would be obliged 
to remain all winter in the country. We knew 
approximately when the boat would leave Circle 
City, and from time to time, as Ave had been 
floating down the river, we had inquired at trad- 
ing posts whether she had yet passed us, for this 
would be very easy by day in the many channels 
of the Flats, and still easier by night, especially 



250 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

as the river, even when confined in a single 
channel, is often several miles wide in this lower 
part, and a steamer passing on one side would 
hardly be observed from our camp on the other 
bank. 

We had last heard at the station opposite the 
mouth of the Tanana that she had not yet 
})assed, though she was daily expected — but that 
was several days ago. Of course we Avould have 
been able to lie by at any of these posts and 
camp until the steamer should arrive ; but so 
great was our desire to make the best possible 
use of every minute we had to stay in Alaska 
that we preferred to take the risk of being left 
all winter, with an opportunity of building a log- 
hut and laying in fire-wood till spring, rather 
than lose the last part of our journey in the 
Skookum. But we were relieved by the trader 
at Nulato, who told us that the steamer had not 
arrived. AVe were then given the use of a log 
cabin, with glass windows, which was sumptu- 
ously furnished with a stove, a he^vn-wood bed, 
a table and a three-legged stool. 

After supper we made the tour of the village, 
crawling into the little cabins of the natives, 



THE LOWER YUKON. 251 

where the women sat cross-legged in groups, oc- 
cupied in their sewing. They were making 
gloves of moose-skin trimmed with beaver, caps 
of the ground squirrel or marmot fur, and high 
boots of the hair seal with bottoms of walrus 
hide. Most of them used steel needles, though 
many still kept to those of pierced bone, which 
seemed in skillful hands to serve the purpose 
quite as well. Our curiosity was soon satisfied, 
for each dwelling was much like every other ; so 
after Ave had made bargains for some of the ar- 
ticles, we went back to our cabin and turned in. 
The joy of having a roof over our heads as a pro- 
tection against the rain which was now pelting 
down was so great that I lay awake some little 
time staring gloatingly up at the logs. 

In the morning the one whose turn it Avas to 
cook rose early, and soon large kettles were full 
of beans, dried apples and rice, and all Avere 
boiling merrily away, Avhile the bacon sizzled 
and smoked in the frying-pan. The other tAvo 
of us lay lazily in our blankets, and sniffed the 
delicious odors, turning now and then from side 
to side when the hcAvn logs upon which Ave Avere 
lying grew conspicuously hard. Suddenly the 



252 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

door was burst open and a deaf-and-dumb Indian 
who had made hhnself useful the night before, 
bringing us wood and water in consideration of 
a square meal afterwards, rushed in, and with 
many gestures began to try to make us under- 
stand something. We had seen a surprisingly 
large number of deaf mutes aniong the natives, 
and they were always more easy to understand 
than the others, who had the habit of sputtering 
and choking away in their own tongue, although 
they knew very well that we did not understand 
a word of it ; while the deaf mutes immediately 
enlightened us by some of the signs they were 
so practiced in making. This one, b}^ energetic 
revolutions of his hands around one another, 
recalled to us immediately the stern-wheel of a 
steamboat, while the puffing he made with his 
mouth took away all doubt as to his meaning. 
Then he pointed up the river, and gesticulated 
violently. 

We all turned out on the double quick, and, 
sure enough, the steamer was not more than a 
half a mile away. She was due to stop at Nulato 
a half hour to get wood, and so heavy was the 
traffic on the river at this time of the year and 



THE LOWER YUKON. 253 

SO important every hour in making connections 
with the ocean steamer that we knew she 
could not be got to stay longer. So we began 
hasty and energetic preparations, first rolling 
our blankets and strapping them with our 
personal outfit into the pack-sacks which we had 
carried throughout the trip, then hurriedly 
bundling together tents, specimens, and whatever 
else we deemed necessary and practicable to take 
out of Alaska with us. Many of the more 
cumbersome articles we abandoned, as they were 
much worn, and it would cost more than the 
original price to carry them back to the United 
States at the extraordinary prices for freight 
then prevailing. The natives soon became aware 
of our hurry and hung around in numbers, eager 
to help, but generally getting in the way ; each 
had his eye on some article which he hoped to 
fall heir to. To many of these natives, poor 
beyond our ordinary conception of poverty, a 
nicked camp-axe is a substantial private fortune, 
and one Siwash to whom this article was aAvarded 
for general good conduct marched off in great 
happiness. Another fell heir to our boat — the 
faithful old Skookum, who had carried us two 



254 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

thousand miles, and now was somewhat battered 
and leaky as the result of her travels. 

Meanw^hile the steamer had swung in close to 
the flat high bank, the gang planks had been 
dropped down, and scores of natives, partly 
those of the village and partl}^ those who had 
come on the steamer, scampered back and forth 
carrying wood on board in the most clumsy and 
ridiculous fashion, but still accomplishing much 
work by reason of their numbers. Miners, with 
whom the boat was crowded, came ashore and 
strolled around the village ; they walked into our 
cabin and pestered us with idle and aimless 
questions, as we were working hard to get our 
stuff ready to take on board. At the last mo- 
ment, when sufficient wood had been gotten in, 
the whistle was blown ; we grabbed our pack-sacks 
and gave the remaining burdens to the natives to 
carry, and hurried on board. We had left some 
things, others than those mentioned. I felt then 
a keen regret, which occurs to me whenever I 
think of it, at being obliged to abandon all the 
good " grub " which had been boiling and frying 
away so merrily on the stove when our deaf- 
and-dumb friend had roused us from our dream. 



THE LOWER YUKON. 255 

Xone of US being enthusiastic cooks, it had been 
our custom to prepare large amounts of the stock 
articles of diet at a time, in order that one cook- 
ing, with some few additions, might last most of 
each man's allotted time of three days ; so the 
quantity we left behind was ample to feed quite 
a number of Siwash, and I have no doubt they 
gorged themselves, and had lively times trying 
to see who could eat the most and the quickest. 

The steamer was packed. Miners who had 
intended to go to the " Outside " this year, had 
waited as late as they dared, so as to work their 
claim and bring out as much as possible, and 
then had taken this last boat. We found every 
sleeping accommodation taken, and not until late 
in the afternoon did the steward's resources lind 
us a place. The only available space left under 
cover Avas that occupied by the tables in the 
steerage division. After supper was eaten, 
these tables were taken out, and the floor-room 
thus gained was allotted us. The rest of the 
floor was already occupied, and we had to exer- 
cise great care to keep from rolling over into 
another man's preserves. IVe spread our rubber 
blankets on the deck to protect us from tobacco 



256 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

juice and other unpleasant things, and spread 
our woollen blankets on these. Lights were put 
out at about ten o'clock, and after that there was 
considerable stumbling around. 

On the forward deck in front of the steeraire 
department an active poker game, conducted by 
a professional gaml)ler, was continually in prog- 
ress, under a sail which had been rigged up as a 
cover. This game always wore on until Jiiid- 
night and attracted many interested spectators as 
well as players, all crowding around the table on 
which stacks of gold pieces were piled, under the 
light of a lantern tied overhead. When the men 
finally started to bed, they lost their beaiings in 
the almost complete darkness and wandered 
far and wide, stumbling over the prostrate sleep- 
ers, whose loud and heartfelt oaths disturbed the 
])eace almost as much as the hobnailed boots on 
one's stomach. At the first glimmer of dawn — 
i. €., about three in the morning — we were routed 
out and made to roll up our blankets out of the 
way in order that the tables might be set uj) for 
a seven o'clock breakfast; so on the whole our 
sleep was light and short. Yet we had paid hrst- 
class fares on boarding the boat. I have since 



THE LOWER YUKON. 257 

taken a comfortable two- weeks' voyage on a 
transatkmtic steamer to Germany for the same 
price as I paid for this passage to St. Michael's, 
occupying four or five days. 

The next day we stopped at the native village 
of Anvik. By this time we had left the land of 
the Indians or Ingeliks, which reaches down 
the river below Nulato, and had reached that 
of the Innuits or Eskimos. Anvik was the first 
Eskimo village I had seen and the impression 
I carried away with me was one of extreme 
disgust. The whole place was a human sty, 
from which arose an overpowering stink. The 
houses were mere shacks built of poles laid close 
together, with holes in the centre to allow the 
smoke to escape. All around the houses, in 
front, behind, and along the paths, was ordure. 
Most of the people whom we saw had the ap- 
pearance of being diseased : whole rows of the 
maimed, the halt, the blind, and the scrofu- 
lous, sunned themselves in front of the huts. 
Others sat huddled in their long fur shirts or 
parkas (which constitute their only garment), 
and coughed constantly, too sick to show much 
interest in the white visitors. A little apart, in 



258 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

front of the houses, a woman squatted, sobbing, 
while beside her crouched an old crone with a 
mouth like a fish, who crooned incessantly a 
weird, uionotonous and mournful chant, to which 
the sobbing woman made brief responses at in- 
tervals. Other women sat around in their doors, 
all looking sad, and man}' sobbing. A young 
Indian bo}^ from the steamer, who had picked 
up some English in a mission school, explained 
the scene to us. " That woman's baby die," he 
said. " Everybody all day cry." 

"VYe were glad to turn away from the most 
dismal and degraded set of human beings it had 
ever been my lot to see ; on our wa}' back to the 
steamer we passed a building of sawed boards 
used as a mission, and met the missionary, who 
was properly attired in a suit of clerical black, 
with white linen and tie. lie had a book in his 
hand. I had rather seen him dressed in a parka, 
with an axe over his shoulder. 

Below Anvik a short distance, we came to the 
Holy Cross Mission, a Catholic station located at 
another Eskimo village. The village was only a 
little better than that of Anvik to look at, but 
somewhat better to smell of. The mission itself, 



THE LOWER YUKON. 259 

however, was a model. The buildings were well- 
built and clean, and there was a flourishing gar- 
den, containing potatoes, rutabagas, cabbages 
and lettuce, the whole surrounded by a rail 
fence ; and in another little enclosure there was 
a real live cow, almost as much a novelty to us as 
to the natives from further up the river, Avho left 
the steamboat and pressed around the strange 
animal with wondering eyes, as children view 
the elephant at their first circus. We saw many 
little girls, pupils of the school, spotlessly ar- 
rayed in new calico dresses, with gay silk or 
cotton handkerchiefs on their heads. They made 
quite a pretty picture, and the contrast of the 
little maidens with their relatives at Anvik was 
something almost startling. These children had 
been taken away from their parents by the sis- 
ters who teach at the Mission and were being 
brought up by them, to be sent away again only 
when grown. 

Between the Holy Cross Mission and the Yukon 
delta the river grows continually wider till it is 
in places fully five miles from bank to bank, 
without islands. The banks themselves become 
low and very flat, and the timber disappears al- 



260 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

most entirely, leaving the swampy plains known 
as tundra. Along here the only fuel is drift- 
wood ; and this the natives had stacked up in 
places ready for the steamer. Landing to take on 
wood was always the opportunity for a run on 
shore, dickering with the natives for curiosities, 
and general hilarity. The people liere were won- 
derfully different from those on the Yukon from 
ISTulato to the headwaters, being round and rosy, 
rather small in stature, and wath a certain Mon- 
golian appearance. They are childlike in look 
and action, with round wondering eyes, and 
mouths always ready to smile broadly and unre- 
servedly at any hint of a joke. They were 
dressed in the Eskimo parka, made of furs of 
various sorts, especially squirrel, mink, reindeer, 
or muskrat. The w^hole sustenance of the people 
in this barren tundra district appeared to be hsh, 
and many of them had been obliged to make their 
parkas and leggings out of the fish skins, which 
were sewn together with much neatness and 
taste, and were ornamented with red ochre. In 
wet weather they ^vore long shirts made of the 
entrails of animals, split open and sewn together ; 
these had tight-fitting hoods and sleeves, and 



THE LOWER YUKON. 



261 



were practically watertight. The Eskimo kayak 
or covered boat, made by stretching seal or 
walrus skins over a wooden frame, makes its 
appearance along here, although the birch canoe 
is still to be seen. In the houses of these people 
we saw sealskins full of oil laid up as a provision 
against the winter. 




Tiikee-Hatch Hkin Boat, or Bidarka. 



At a mission further up the river a Russian 
priest of the Greek Catholic church had gotten 
on board. He wore the plain black gown, full 
beard and long hair of men of his class, and 
spoke broken English. He seemed well ac- 
quainted with the country, however, and assured 



2G2 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

US that these peo[)le were distinct both from the 
Kolcliane or Indians, who were found all along 
the Yukon above Nulato, and from the Mahlemut 
Eskimos. These middle people he called Kwik- 
paks ; but I am sure they are really Eskimos, 
with perhaps some peculiarities, due to their 
position on the border-line of two races differing 
so greatly as do the Eskimos and the Indians. 

The same day we left the Yukon for good, 
emerging from the northern or A])-hoon mouth, 
(for the Yukon forms a delta which spreads out 
many miles and includes many channels) out on 
the open sea. "VVe were struck with the color of 
the clear green water, after so long viewing the 
muddy brown Yukon or the clear black of some 
of its tributaries. Before us the country was 
barren, untimbered, and black, with volcanic 
cones rising here and there. As we advanced, 
low islands rose out of the sea around these 
cones, — fields of lava, covered with swam})s and 
ponds, — while we left behind us the dead level 
untimbered tundra of the Yukon delta. We 
anchored under the lee of an island that night, 
and as usual we were roused from our sleeping 
places before daylight the next morning by the 



THE LOWER YUKON. 263 

cook. The sun rose gloriously from behind the 
low black volcanic liills and just as we were get- 
tine; around to breakfast at the fourth table we 
steamed into St. Michael's. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ST. MICHAEL'S AND SAN FRANCISCO. 

ST. MICHAEL'S is the usual port for the 
Yukon, though seventy miles from its 
mouth. The Russians had a fort and garrison at 
this place before they sold the territory to the 
United States, and since then the commercial 
companies have had posts here. The chief part 
of the population, however, consists of Eskimos. 
These people are very expert in carving. 
From stone they make axes, lamps, skin-scrapers 
and many other implements ; and from bone, and 
especially from the walrus and mammoth ivory, 
they carve many things, among them polished 
pipes. These pipes are evidently modelled after 
the opium pipes of the East, with a peculiar 
shaped bowl having only a very small cavity in 
it, and a long stem. They are ornamented with 
manv figures scratched on the ivorv with a sharp 
knife, and then colored by having charcoal and 
grease rubbed into the scratches ; these figures. 



ST. MICHAEUS AND SAN FRANCISCO. 



265 



of Avliich there may be several hundred on a 
single pipe, represent the Eskimo in his daily oc- 
cupations, especially his hunting of deer, wolf, 
and whale, his dancing in the kas/u'/n, or his 
travelling in his kayak. 

Strolling around the village, and peering into 




Eskimo Houses at St. Michael's. 



the harahai'ra><, or private houses, I ran across an 
old savage who was handling an object which 
immediately attracted my attention ; when he 
saw my curiosity he explained by signs that it 
was an apparatus for making tire, and at my re- 
quest he actually performed the feat. It was 



2()(; Tiinouan the yukon gold diggings. 

the old plan of riibl)iiig two sticks of wood to- 
gethei-, such as we have often read that savages 
do; yet I had never known an}^ one who knew 
exactlv how it was done, although as a boy I had 
often worn myself out in vain endeavors to make 




A Native r)ut)iavAY. 



lire in this way. So far as I know, no one had 
ever satisfactorily exjilained how the Alaskan 
natives get their fire, one writer having even 
supposed that they brought it from volcanoes in 
the first place ; and from the extraordinary care 
which they take in preserving hot coals and 
often in carrying them considei'able distances, 



S7\ 3IICHAEUS AND SAN FRANCISCO. 267 

one does not often see them in the process of ob- 
taining a new supply. 

The apparatus which I saw here used was 
simple and ingenious. In a thoroughly dry stick 
of spruce were cut a number of little grooves, — 
this was the wood destined to catch fire. The 
other piece of wood was a rounded stick of some 
very hard variety, which the Eskimo told me 
was picked up in the driftwood along the shore : 
it was very likely a foreign wood. The point of 
the hard stick was set upright in one of the grooves 
of the soft dry piece and by means of a leather 
thong was made to revolve ra})idly in it, the hard 
upright piece being kept in place by a stone 
socket set in a piece of wood, which was held in 
the mouth of the operator. After vigorously 
twirling the stick by means of the thong for 
about a minute the soft wood began to smoke ; a 
moment afterwards a faint spark was visible. 
Then the Eskimo stopped revolving the stick and 
heaping all the fine dust of the soft wood which 
had Ijeen worn off by the grinding on the spark, 
and blew it carefully till it grew to larger dimen- 
sions ; then he placed a blade of dry grass on the 
spark, and, blowing again, it burst into flame. 



2(J8 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

The whole process had histed about three 
minutes. The old man explained also that in 
boring' the holes in stone, bone or ivory, they 
used the same device, emploj'ing a stone drill in- 
stead of the wooden stick. 

There was great commotion among the natives 
at ISt. Michael's the morning after we arrived, 
and the men all dragged their kayaks into the 
water and getting into them paddled out into 
the harbor, wliei'e a number of small whales 
were seen disporting themselves. When they 
neared the school the men separated, and when a 
whale Avould sound they spread themselves out 
so as to be nearly at the spot where he should 
come up. Each man had several of the light 
spears they used for capturing tish ; these weap- 
ons are perhaps three and a half feet long, and 
weigh about a pound, the shaft being slender 
and of light wood and the tip of a barbed piece 
of bone. To each of these they had fastened by 
a long thong, as they were paddling out, a 
blown-up bladder. As soon as a whale rose the 
Eskimo who happened to be near sent his little 
spear with great force deeply into its flesh. The 
wound was of course insignificant, and the ani- 



ST. MICHAEUS AND SAN FRANCISCO. 269 

mal, taking alarm, sank into the water again ; 
but when alter some time he was forced to re- 
turn to the surface, he encountered several 
hunters again, and received several more spears 
with attached bladders. This time the buoyancy 
of the bladders made it difficult for him to sink, 
and he rose soon afterwards, only to be filled 
with so many spears that the bladders kept him 
from sinking at all ; then the natives drew near 
and with all kinds of w^eapons cut and slashed 
and worried the creature till he finally gave up 
from loss of blood, and died. Then he was 
towed ashore amid great excitement and with 
rejoicing, not only by the hunters, but by the 
women, children and old men who flocked down 
to the beach as it came in. 

The next thing was to cut up and divide the 
carcass, and this was done thoroughly, every- 
■ body in the village coming in for a share. Noth- 
ing was wasted. Even the blood was carefully 
saved and divided, and the sinews were given to 
the women, who would dry and make them into 
threads for sewing. Soon all the fires in the vil- 
lage were burning, and the smell of boiling 
whale-flesh came from many pots, into Avhich 



•270 THROUGH THE YUKON iWLD DIGGINGS. 

the women peered expectantly. One old lady 
whom I noticed doing this showed in her dress 
some of the etfects of civilization, which is a rare 
thing with the Eskimo, as they dress by prefer- 
ence in their squirrel or muskrat-skin parkas ; 
her flow^ing garment was made of Hour-sacks 
sewn together, and one might read the legend, 
inscribed many times and standing in many atti- 
tudes, that the wearer (presumably) was Anchor 
Brand. 

St. Michael's is made up of volcanic rock, and 
has been lifted from the sea in recent geologic 
times. The natives know this, and say that they 
find lines of driftwood marking the ancient limit 
of the waves, at places far above where the 
highest water now reaches; on the other hand, 
they say that the island has been thrice sub- 
merged since the memory of man. Out of the 
general swam[)y level of the land around the 
village rise, further back, broken cones with old 
craters at their tops ; these were very likely under 
the level of the sea when they were active. We 
had time to spend a few days wandering over 
this country, climbing through the rocky craters, 
and looking down on the numberless swamp 




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272 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS. 

lakes which cover the southeast side of the 
isUmtl. One day, however, we received sudden 
word that the steamer on which we had enoaoed 

o o 

passage was about to sail, and we hurried on 
board. That night we were far out on Behring 
Sea, tossing in a strong wind which soon increased 
to a terrific gale. 

We lay several days " hove to " in this gale, 
with oil casks over the bows to break the great 
waves which threatened more than once to 
smash us and often seemed about to roll us over 
and over. Finally, however, it quieted enough 
to let the seasick ones drop asleep, while the 
sailors made things taut again, and before long 
we were in harbor at the island of Ilnalaska 
— one of the great chain of Aleutian islands 
which reaches from America to Asia, and the 
chief stopping point for nearly all boats between 
the Yukon mouth and the coast of the United 
States proper. Unalaska is a country of chaoti- 
cally wild scenery. The streams in turn meander 
over level benches and then tumble in waterfalls 
over steep cliffs to the next bench, and so on till 
they reach the sea ; such a cataract we saw on 
the right as we entered the harbor. 



ST. BIICHAEUS AND SAN FRANCISCO. 273 

In the village here we found the Aleuts semi- 
civilized from their long contact with white men, 
for here the Russians held direct control long 
before the territory was sold to the United 
States ; they live in neat w^ooden houses, and if 
one peeps in by night he may even see here and 
there lace curtains and rocking-chairs. 

Seventeen days after leaving St. Michael's we 
finally reached San Francisco. It was a clear, 
fine Sunday when we passed through the Golden 
Gate, tingling with excitement which we had 
felt since seeing the first land on the California 
coast. The sight of the multitude of houses on 
the hillside, the smoke of the cit}^ the craft of 
all kinds going back and forth, had in it some- 
thing very strange and discomposing for us. It 
was only when the ship was at the dock, and Ave 
had gone ashore, that we realized, from the way 
the curious crowd formed a circle around us and 
stared in open-mouthed wonder, that our appear- 
ance was unusual for a city. We had not taken 
much baggage through the Yukon country, and 
our camp clothes were very shabby. None of us 
had had opportunity to have hair and beard 
trimmed since we left — with the result that we 



274 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGIA'GS. 

had a mane reaching to the shoulders and fierce 
bushy buccaneer wliiskers, inches deep all around. 
Two of us wore ancient high leather boots and 
the third wore a kind of moccasin. We all had 
heavy " maLckinaw " trousers of blanket-cloth, 
with belted coats of the same material, while 
coarse flannel shirts and dilapidated felt hats, 
burned with the sparks of many a camp-fire and 
seamed with the creases of many a night's sleep, 
completed our costume. 

Finding the attention of the crowd embarrass- 
ing, we took a carriage for the Grand Hotel, and 
as we were driving through the streets I noticed 
that if one so much as caught a glimpse of our 
faces through the carriage window, he would 
turn and stare after the cab till it was out of 
sight. It was Sunday afternoon, and the streets 
were filled with smartly dressed men and women. 
For our part, the sight of all this correct and con- 
ventional dressing made a disagreeable impression 
on us, after so long a period of free and easy life ; 
the white collars and cuffs of the men, in par- 
ticular, obtruded themselves on my attention and 
irritated me. 

We had left our " store clothes " in Seattle and 



ST. iVICHAEUS AND SAN FRANCISCO. 275 

had to telegraph to get them. It took a couple 
of days for this, and in the meantime we had 
only to wait. We had been looking forward to 
going to the theatre as soon as we should arrive 
in San Francisco, and when our clothes did not 
arrive, were disappointed, till we suddenly 
braced up in defiance of the whole city, and said, 
"Let's go anyhow." We had not had time to 
get our hair and beard trimmed, and our costume 
was in all respects the same as when we left 
Circle City, but we sallied out bravely. We 
were late at the theatre, and the play had already 
begun ; it was a popular one, and the only seats 
left were some in the " bald-headed " row. 

Although we had by this time the idea forced 
on us that our appearance was unusual, we were 
by no means prepared for the commotion which 
we brought about, as we walked up the broad 
aisle to our seats. There was a hum and a 
sizzle of whispers throughout the house, which 
changed to laughter and exclamations ; and the 
actors on the stage, catching sight of us, got 
"rattled" and forgot to go on. Up in the pea- 
nut gallery the gods began to indulge in catcalls 
and make personal inquiries. We hurried to our 



276 THROUGH THE YUKON GOLD DIGGINGS 

seats to escape this storm, and meeting an usher 
thrust our tickets into liis hand. He looked at 
us with a puzzled air and a broad grin, as if he 
thought it all some huge joke, but we were get- 
ting nerv6us, and gave him a glare which made 
him indicate our seats for us. The audience 
evidently believed we were part of the show ; 
many were standing by this time, waiting to see 
what the next would be, but after a while the 
buzz subsided and the play went on. There was 
a constant current of conversation about us, how- 
ever ; behind us a young fellow was excitedly 
asking his companion " Who are they, who are 
they?" "Don't know," said the other. " h^ail- 
ors, I guess." 

After a while we felt like returning to the 
solitude of our hotel rooms ; the play, too, did 
not please us, so in the middle of an act we got 
up, and having remarked very audibly "Disis 
a rotten show," we went. As we started down 
the aisle the commotion grew louder than ever, 
and we slipped quickly out and down a side 
street. 

FINIS. 



OCT 1? y^^^ 



